More than 700 students who had secured medical seats in Gujarat did not confirm their admissions after the second round of counselling held recently. Because shadowy agents use dummy candidates to block seats and sell them to the highest bidders, ahmedabad: Medical education has always been expensive, and costs are rising like an untamable fever.
In one instance, an Ahmedabad-based agent allegedly quoted Rs 1.4 crore for a confirmed management-quota admission at a medical college in central Gujarat. A TOI reporter posing as a student with a low score (232 out of 720) contacted an intermediary agent operating from an office in Satellite. The agent quoted Rs 1.4 crore for the management-quota seat. “Agents seek Rs 5 lakh in advance.
“Some agents are known to submit 200-400 dummy applications of MBBS aspirants who do not wish to take admission in the current year due to high fees or their desire to retake NEET.
“The management-quota fee at this college is Rs 23 lakh per annum and the total fee for the five-year course comes to Rs 1.15 crore,” said a source familiar with the case. They take the candidate’s NEET scorecard, login ID, and password and fill in the admission form themselves,” the source said. “A reshuffle of seats happens in such cases, and a candidate with a poor score gets a chance to take admission on a management-quota seat,” the source said.
A source familiar with the alleged malpractice explained how the arrangement works.