Sky-high fees leave 836 MBBS seats empty in final counselling round
Four colleges, each with 250 MBBS seats, account for most of the empty seats. Shri Sathya Sai Medical College and Research Institute in Chennai tops the list with 188 vacant — 75%. Meenakshi Medical College and Research Institute in Kancheepuram has 117 (47%), Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute in Puducherry has 92 (37%), and Sree Balaji Medical College in Chromepet has 82 (33%). India has 13 lakh registered allopathic doctors. “The Union health ministry says the doctor-population ratio of 1:811 beats the WHO norm of 1:1,000, but it gets there by counting 7.5 lakh AYUSH practitioners. At Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, the cut-off rank dropped from 7.3 lakh to 10.68 lakh.
Because they can’t pay this fee, those with better marks haven’t opted.
We needs more modern medicine practioners,” he said. It defeats the spirit of NEET,” said Manickavel Arumugam, who counsels students on medical admissions. Several other colleges in and around Chennai also have vacancies, including SRM Medical College and Research Institute, Saveetha Medical College and Chettinad Medical College and Research Institute. Wilson also pointed to a shortage of allopathic doctors. Some high-fee colleges managed to fill their seats, but their closing ranks fell sharply. “Seats in this college usually fill by the third round. This year, students with minimum scores got in at the stray round.