'Private medical college students can pay fees to govt from this yr'

CHENNAI: Counselling for the medical aspirants continues to hang in balance even after the NEET entrance exams results which were out last week. The state health authorities when asked about the delay blamed the Centre for the delay in counselling.

Commenting on the NEET counselling in the State, the director of medical education R Narayana Babu said that the date will be announced by the Health Minister, Ma Subramanian, after the Union government releases the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) rank list data.

Further, the State is taking steps to curb the overcharge of fees collected by the private medical college and students can now pay the entire fees to the government from this year, Narayana Babu told reporters here on Wednesday.

There are grievances from students paying fees that colleges are charging extra and now the State had made provisions to help the students, he added.

In 2021, MBBS counselling was held in 36 government medical colleges, almost 95 per cent of seats were filed in all colleges during the counselling.

“The counselling was transparent and it took place in the presence of all the medical college doctors and deans. Similar efforts will be taken this year when the NEET rank list is released,” he said.

Meanwhile, during the pandemic, several doctors were transferred to meet the pandemic crisis. As the cases had decreased now doctors have been moved back to their previous hospitals where they were posted, the DME said.