48 PG seats lying vacant across private medical colleges in Gujarat

Ahmedabad: After four rounds of NEET-PG counselling held over nearly two months, as many as 48 postgraduate medical seats in private colleges across Gujarat remain vacant, despite MD and MS courses being highly sought after.

The vacancy has emerged this year in courses like radiology, orthopaedics, paediatrics, surgery and gynaecology. This is considered one of the highest numbers of vacant PG seats in recent years, according to medical experts. 

Providing a reason behind the vacancy, medical experts highlighted that the primary reason behind PG seats remaining vacant in private medical colleges is the high fees charged by these institutions.

Also read- 4-seat limit for new PG courses, intake increase in non-govt medical colleges: NMC

As per TOI news report, PG courses such as radiology charge as high as Rs 61 lakh, dermatology for Rs 47 lakh, orthopaedics for 45 lakh, gynaecology for Rs 45 lakh, paediatrics for Rs 44 lakh, surgery for Rs 44 lakh and emergency medicine for Rs 28 lakh. 

Speaking to the Daily, officials said, "All the seats are in privately run medical colleges. The details of vacant seats under the all-India quota in Gujarat will be released soon. The state's admission committee has already completed four rounds of admission, and the admission process was officially declared over on Feb 28."

The dean of a prominent medical college in Gujarat told TOI on condition of anonymity that "The overall pool has about 1,200 seats in govt-run medical colleges across the country. The vacancies have been recorded in private institutions, and high fees could be one of the reasons."

Another major reason behind the vacancies is the late addition of seats at various government and private medical colleges after the second round of counselling, following directions from the National Medical Commission.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that the NMC under CSS schemes approved 8058 additional PG seats in medical colleges across the country, as per information shared by Union Health Minister Smt Anupriya Patel in the Rajya Sabha.

While the move increased the number of seats for PG aspirants, creating more opportunities, it also reportedly created an imbalance. As per a TOI news report, students who were lower in the merit list later got a chance to choose better government colleges and courses, compared to those who had already locked their choices in the first two rounds based on the seats available at that time.

Gujarat had 5,900 medical students who qualified through NEET-PG against 3,425 seats available in the state-based medical colleges. The number also includes 800 all-India quota seats. Against the earlier merit of 50%, the revised merit required 110 marks for the open quota and 0 for some categories.

Admission committee officials also said that "The number in core medical course seats is one of the highest in recent years. While some seats remain vacant in courses such as pharmacology, community medicine, and forensic medicine, the chances are very low that the branches such as orthopaedics, radiology, or surgery will remain vacant."

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