MBBS, BDS admission registrations drop in Maharashtra this year

Mumbai: In Maharashtra, the Pre-admission registrations for undergraduate health science courses including MBBS and BDS have gone down by a few thousand applications this year.

According to the figures of the state common entrance test (CET) cell (which is the admission authority), only around 55,674 candidates completed the process by uploading the necessary documents and paying fees by the deadline of January 5, reports the Hindustan Times.

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However, this time around 9000 applications are lesser as compared to the 64,645 candidates who had completed the registration process in the last academic year. The CET cell on Thursday decided to extend the registration process by another five days till January 10 in order to encourage more registrations. The first provisional merit list would now be released on January 13 on the basis of the new schedule.

A senior official from the state CET cell said, "We have received queries from many students who could not complete the process either because they made errors while filling the online form or are still awaiting appropriate documents to attach with their form. In order to give such students more time to complete registrations, we have decided to extend the deadline." He added that the admission authority believes that the extended time would encourage thousands more to complete the process.

In 2019, 59,000 students registered for undergraduate medical courses for over 5,000 seats. And this year, there are around 6,800 UG medical seats across government and private medical colleges in the state.

Even though the CET officials hopes of receiving thousands more for admissions over the next four days, the experts have attributed the dip in registrations to the delay in commencement of the admission process which left not a single admission of UG or PG medical students in 2021 altogether, reported the daily HT.

Shenoy, parent and activist said, "Not only was the overall admission process delayed but simple registration for students and announcement of the state merit list was delayed in Maharashtra by four months. In the meantime, several students opted for admissions in neighbouring states where the process began in November itself." She added that in some cases, especially those students having lower National Elig ibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG) scores took admission in other courses including engineering and pharmacy to avoid further delay.

The pre-admission registrations was begun by the Maharashtra CET cell on December 30 while states like Kerala, Punjab and Odisha started registrations in November.

A senior official from the state Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) said, "Several students have understood that the delay that they've faced this year is unprecedented and instead of waiting further, many have decided to appear for NEET exams again next year and apply for admissions. There are students who have sought admissions to BSc Computer Science courses and are planning to continue with those for the current academic year instead of wasting any more time on admissions and this is reflecting in registration figures."

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