Medical and dental courses counselling from July 9

CHENNAI: Counselling for medical and dental degree courses will begin on July 9 and end on July 16, Health Minister KKSSR Ramachandran said on Tuesday.

There was no question of postponement of the counselling because of refusal of the Medical Council of India to renew recognition to three government colleges, the Minister said and added that the counselling would be done for all the seats available, including the 300 seats in the colleges that had been denied recognition.

The MCI withheld recognition for the Kanyakumari Medical College, Asaripallam; the Theni Medical College and Vellore Medical College. Each college has 100 seats.

Mr. Ramachandran said that while counselling would be carried out for all seats, admission to these three medical colleges would be done only after the MCI granted recognition to them.

The Government had already taken steps to rectify the situation and the new position would be brought to the notice of Union Health Ministry. “It is only a technical issue. This relates to the promotions granted to some of the teaching staff, mainly tutors. It was issued by the DME while they [MCI] had asked why the government did not issue orders on the promotions,” Mr. Ramachandran said.

The Health department had set right the problems late last month itself. Mr. Ramachandran said that he and Health Secretary V.K.Subburaj would meet Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss in New Delhi on Wednesday.

The Minister said he was confident that the problem would be sorted out and that the 300 seats would be available. On the issue of scarcity of faculty members in non-clinical departments, he said that as a first step, the Government had increased the intake in some of these specialities at the post-graduate level.

Candidates granted admission had to work compulsorily in government service for three years.

Commenting on the fee structure of private medical colleges, the Minister said if the fee was not reduced substantially, the Government would go on appeal, he said.