Maharashtra Faces Pharmacy Admission Slump Despite 38 New Colleges, Only 48% Students Confirm Seats
Mumbai: Maharashtra's Bachelor of Pharmacy (B Pharm) admissions have once again hit a roadblock, with thousands of seats likely to go unfilled this year as well. As many as 17,000 out of 46,109 B Pharm seats remain vacant after the completion of the third round of the Centralized Admission Process (CAP).
According to the latest data reported by the Indian Express, the previous year had shown a comparable trend — out of 41,282 B Pharm seats, nearly 12,714 remained unfilled across the state.
This Year, with only one more CAP round remaining, officials fear the vacancy count will not reduce significantly. This concern stems from the fact that only 48 per cent of candidates who were allotted seats in the third round actually confirmed their admissions. The fourth-round allotment list is scheduled to be released on November 6.
Earlier, the Medical Dialogues Team had reported, over 6,100 students were allotted Bachelor of Pharmacy (B.Pharm) seats in the third round of the centralized admission process after 38 newly approved pharmacy colleges were added to the list this year. Before their inclusion, the state had around 46,000 seats, but the addition of these institutes — which were permitted to participate after obtaining court relief against PCI action — has expanded the total capacity to nearly 56,000 seats across 447 colleges, according to data shared by the State Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell.
Experts have attributed the dismal response primarily to the three-month delay in conducting the admission process this year. Admissions commenced only in September, much later than usual, disrupting academic timelines and dampening student interest.
The delay originated at the registration stage, when the Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) was still in the process of granting approvals to new colleges. Matters worsened when, just a day before CAP was set to begin, 18 degree colleges were barred from admitting students due to non-compliance with PCI norms.
This action followed a crackdown by the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE), Maharashtra, on institutions that allegedly failed to meet government stipulations.
"Several colleges had allegedly obtained approvals by submitting forged documents, including fake utility certificates, possession proofs, and building plans, following which a re-inspection was ordered by the state’s higher and technical education department, as per standards laid down by the PCI", a DTE official revealed.
“But all of them were brought in for the third round, after the colleges obtained relief from the court against the action taken by the PCI… This automatically increased the pool of seats, portraying a larger vacancy at the end of the third round,” the official told the Indian Express.
