PMK blames TN Govt, DME for delay in medical counselling

Chennai, Aug 11 (UNI) Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) founder leader S Ramadoss today charged that the Tamil Nadu Government and Department of Medical Education (DME) had deliberately delayed the second phase of counselling for Medical admission to enbale the Chettinad Medical College to secure Deemed University status.

In a statement here, Dr Ramadoss said after the first phase of counselling for Medical admission, the Government resumed the second phase after a gap of 36 days and questioned the rationale behind the inordinate delay.

He said it appeared that the Government and the DME wanted to help the self-financing Chettinad Medical College, as it had secured the Deemed University status, using the long gap between the two phase of counselling.

Thanks to the Deemed University status, the Chettinad Medical College need not surrender any seat to the Government. Thus the Government lost its quota of 97 seats, the PMK founder said.

This has deprived a number of backward class and scheduled caste students from seeking admission in the college under Government quota, he said and blamed the DMK Government and the DME for this bungling.

In the counselling for Engineering admission also more than 18,000 students failed to turn up and more than 10,000 seats remained unfulfilled, he said. Of this, 38 per cent of seats were earmarked for scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students.

These students could not join because of the high fee strucutre in the private colleges, he said adding ''education, especially professional education has become a costly commodity in the higher education market''.

Alleging that the DMK Government was not bothered about this, Dr Ramadoss said if this trend continued, higher education would be fully privatised in the State and the poor and the downtrodden could not pursue higher education.

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