Gujarat announces special stray round for 88 MBBS, BDS seats, Rs 3 Lakh deposit mandatory
Ahmedabad: The Admission Committee for Professional Undergraduate Medical Educational Courses (ACPUGMEC) has announced a Special Stray Vacancy Round to fill 88 vacant MBBS and BDS seats across medical and dental colleges in the state. Of these, 56 seats are vacant in MBBS courses, while 32 seats are available in BDS courses.
As part of the admission process, eligible candidates will have to deposit a refundable security amount of Rs 3 lakh to participate in the special stray round. The payment window opened on November 2 and will remain open until November 4, 2026, at 3:30 PM.
A notification in this regard, issued by the Committee on November 2nd, mentioned that only those students who have given consent and filled their choice in the fourth online stray vacancy round, but no seat has been allotted in the fourth online stray vacancy round, will be able to download the deposit challan of Rs. 3,00,000 (three lakhs) after logging in with the help of user ID and password.
"Such eligible students will have to deposit Rs. 3,00,000 (Three Lakhs) through the online payment gateway available on the website or cash or demand draft in the name of “ACPUGMEC”, payable at Gandhinagar in the HDFC Bank branches authorized by the committee by date: 04/11/2026, 03:30 PM. (The list of authorized bank branches is available on the admission committee website. Only those students who deposit Rs. 3,00,000 (Three Lakhs) will be considered eligible for allotment of seats," the notification stated.
Candidates who will be allotted seats in the special stray round will have to pay the tuition fee within the stipulated time as mentioned in the schedule, submit the original certificates at the appointed help center, obtain the admission order and appear at the institution where they have been admitted.
At the same time, the committee has also warned that candidates who fail to confirm admission to the seats allotted to them will forfeit their refundable security deposit of Rs 3 lakh along with an additional amount of Rs 10,000.
Further, if any BDS seats remain vacant after the special stray vacancy round, the admission committee will conduct a fifth online stray round to fill the remaining vacancies.
Who can participate in the Special Stray Vacancy Round?
In the notification, the committee has clarified that candidates who gave their consent to participate in the fourth stray vacancy round of MBBS/BDS counselling will be eligible for the special stray round, provided they were not allotted any seat.
However, candidates who have already secured and confirmed admission to MBBS, BDS, BAMS or BHMS courses through any previous counselling round will not be eligible. Similarly, candidates who were allotted a seat in the fourth stray vacancy round of MBBS/BDS counselling cannot participate in the special round.
It has further stated that the admission process for all 100% seats in Gujarat's undergraduate medical and dental colleges, including Government Quota (GQ), Management Quota (MQ) and NRI Quota (NQ) seats, is conducted exclusively by the admission committee through online counselling on a merit basis.
"After all reserved category candidates have been allotted to their reserved seats, any vacant reserved category seats will be transferred to unreserved category seats. This process will be done during the Allotment. Eg., NRI quota to Management quota, Management quota to Government Quota ( SC, ST, SEBC, EWS, General (Open) category as per Admission Rules), and SC, ST, SEBC, EWS to General (Open) category," the notification added.
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