Pics: Spoorthi Ullal
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (ANK)
Mangaluru, Mar 13: The Young Doctors wing of Indian Medical Association, Mangaluru on Monday March 13 staged a protest near Town Hall here demanding centralised counselling for NEET as per the Supreme Court's order, so that every deserving merit student has equal opportunity to get a medical seat without interference of private parties. The protest was held as part of the 'Doctors Against Corruption' campaign.
Addressing the protestors, Dr Vrishanka Aithal said, "We are conducting a state-wide campaign to safeguard the interests of all students of merit from Karnataka, to resurrect social justice that has being trampled under privatization, to control the unbridled rise of cost of medical education, to save the standards of medical education and to urge the immediate implementation of the Supreme Court order on centralised counselling by the state."
Dr Srinivas Kakkilaya said, "Karnataka was one of the first states to start the common entrance test (CET) in 1984 and had 75% of seats in the private medical colleges under the government quota. But instead of a single CET, private colleges and deemed universities have started their own entrance examinations, leading to a steady decline in the share of seats offered under the government quota. This has not only deprived the opportunity to obtain professional education to students with merit, but also hampered social justice. Also, the standard of medical education has sharply declined and its cost has sky-rocketed.
"Attempts have been made by private colleges to subvert the intent of this examination by holding their own counselling for admissions, albeit based on the NEET results. Considering this, the 5-judge bench of the Supreme Court on September 22, 2016 ordered that all admissions for all medical seats under NEET be done only through centralised counselling conducted by the state government and cancelled the counselling held by private colleges. Also, in another judgement dated September 28, 2016, the Supreme Court ordered that centralised counselling by the state government must be held for the medical college seats under the deemed universities as well.
"All the seats for postgraduate education, offering MD/MS/diploma/MDS and also MBBS/BDS in all the goverment, private and deemed university-affliated medical and dental colleges of Karnataka must be alloted on the basis of the UG/PG NEET starting in the year 2017 itself, through only a centralised, transparent, single window counselling held by the Karntaka Examination Authority under the observation of the government of Karnataka. The eligibility to seek admission in the government quota for those students who are from outside the state of Karnataka, but have studied MBBS\BDS in Karnataka must be immediately withdrawn. There must be parity of tution fees and hostel fees, as well as stipend, for all the students admitted under the government quota in government, private and deemed university-affliated medical and dental colleges," he demanded.
Dr Sadashiva Roa said, "The young up-and-coming doctors should not suffer, and hence the Karnataka government should follow the procedure as per the Supreme Court's guideliness to introduce centralised counselling and also seats should be provided for Karnataka domicile students. There is a need to increase stipend for the students."