Entrance test made mandatory for NRI quota seats in medical colleges



By Vikas Vaidya


Bringing check on the admissions made by private medical colleges through the quota exclusively reserved for Non-Resident Indians (NRI), the regulator Medical Council of India (MCI) has made Entrance Test mandatory for these admissions. It is well known secret that NRI quota was the biggest earning source for private medical colleges. This test is made mandatory from the academic year 2015-16.
All admissions in NRI category now will be made through a Common Entrance Test (CET) and from a merit list drawn from the CET so as to rule out all wrong practices and eliminate middle-men from the process. 
This will be a big setback to all private medical colleges in the country as they charge 1.5 times of the fees fixed by the authorities (In Maharashtra Fee Fixation Committee is the authority). So far these colleges admitted NRI category students without conducting CET. Now they can not admit students in NRI category unless they conduct CET and furnish details to admission authority.
The Secretary of MCI Dr Reena Mayyar has sent a letter to Health Secretaries of all State Governments, Directors of Medical Education, Vice-Chancellors/Registrars of all universities, deemed universities; Deans/Principals of all medical colleges and Secretary of Government of India and conveyed them the MCI’s decision.
The matter with regard to the admission of students in the MBBS course under NRI quota was placed before the Executive Committee of the Council at its recent meeting. Supreme Court in P A Inamdar case had noted that “A limited reservation of such seats, not exceeding 15%, may be made available to NRIs depending on the discretion of the management subject to two conditions. First such seats should be utilised bona fide by NRIs only and for their children or wards. Secondly, within this quota, merit should not be given a complete go-by.”
The letter pointed out that according to regulation 5 of the Graduate Medical Education Regulation, 1997, the selection of students to a medical college shall be based solely on the merit of the candidate. Further, regulation 5(ii) stipulates that in States having more than one university, a competitive entrance examination should be held. The letter clarifies that such test is needed to achieve a uniform evaluation for the reason that there should be variation of standards of qualifying examinations conducted by different agencies.
The letter said that NRI students who apply are from different states. These students can be from more than one country and therefore necessarily would have taken qualifying examinations from different universities. On the basis of this component, the MCI has come to a conclusion that Entrance Test should be made compulsory for the admission to medical colleges through NRI quota. Hence, it is compulsory to have an Entrance Test for NRI students so as to determine their merit order to enable them to exercise preference for admissions to the various medical colleges.
As NRI students apply on state-wise basis, it may be even feasible to have the test individually for each state so that there can be a common merit list for NRI students.
When contacted Dr Vedprakash Mishra, Chairman of Academic Council of MCI said, “It is imperative that admissions to medical schools independent of any categorisation need to be merit based and done in a credible, transparent and accountable manner. This initiative of MCI is bound to add to attain fulfil these legitimate expectations of society at large.”

NKPSIMS, PDMC in MH-CET


Opting out from Association-CET, in a surprising move Nagpur’s NKP Salve Institute of Medical Sciences and Amravati’s Dr Punjabrao Deshmukh Medical College (PDMC) have withdrawn from Common Entrance Test (CET) conducted by Association of Unaided Private Medical and Dental Colleges. Ashish Deshmukh, Treasurer of NKPSIMS told The Hitavada, “We will be making admissions to our all Under Graduate, Post Graduate and Super Specialty Courses of Medical through the scores secured by the students in MH-CET conducted by Maharashtra Government. The rules for medical courses’ admissions will be followed set by State Government. The admissions to other courses will be made through Asso

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