VIJAYAWADA: Vice-Chancellor of Dr. N.T.R. University of Health Sciences R. Sambasiva Rao on Tuesday said that the counselling for admission into PG medical courses went on smoothly on the second day and there was no complaint from any quarter. He said that the process was going on as per schedule and 137 seats were filled by 4.30 p.m.

The total number of seats filled in the last couple of days came to 276. As many as 243 out of 383 clinical seats were filled while candidates joined only five out out of 193 non-clinical degrees till now.

Addressing a press conference here, Dr. Sambasiva Rao said that 28 out of 306 clinical diplomas were filled and no non-clinical diploma was allotted till now. The counselling was stopped shortly before the scheduled closure at 6 p.m., as some candidates belonging to Sri Venkateswara University area did not turn up.

The 92nd roster point was running by the time the counselling came to an end.

Fears expressed

The candidates have expressed fears that a good number of seats will remain unfilled this time. This is partly due to some candidates not attending the counselling, as they are already absorbed in all-India institutes and partly due to elimination of 136 candidates following withdrawal of grace marks.

Over 100 candidates, who attended previous counselling, may not turn up this time, as they have already joined courses based on their rankings in all-India examinations like All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS). First ranker C. Vijaya Amarnath Reddy did not attend the present counselling as he had already joined M.D. general medicine at NIMS. Many other rankers had migrated to all-India institutes.

Disqualified

Among the 136 disqualified candidates, who were affected due to withdrawal of grace marks, there were 85 service candidates and the remaining 51 were non-service candidates. The health university's bid to qualify more candidates for counselling by awarding grace marks had failed following an order of the High Court.

Meanwhile, clinical subjects like M.D. general medicine, radiology and paediatrics continued to be in demand among candidates. Non-clinical subjects like pathology, physiology and biochemistry are not in the favoured list.

General medicine

In a departure from earlier years, candidates showed equal enthusiasm to general medicine as in the case of radio diagnosis. Second ranker J. Harikrishna joined general medicine at Osmania Medical College (OMC) though he had ample opportunity to get a seat in radiology. While radio diagnosis would be largely associated with lab work, general medicine is seen as a vibrant area having direct contact with patients.

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