All 323 all-India quota MBBS seats, including the 29 in government-run medical colleges in Bihar, were allotted to students across different medical colleges in India after the special stray vacancy online National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET)-undergraduate (UG) medical counselling, conducted by the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) of the Directorate General of Health Services on Saturday, as per the result posted on its website.
Among the institutions in Bihar, six seats were taken up at Patna’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), four each at Nalanda Medical College Hospital (NMCH), and Muzaffarpur’s Sri Krishna Medical College Hospital (SKMCH), three each at the Darbhanga Medical College Hospital (DMCH) and Patna’s Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS), two each at Gaya’s Anugrah Narayan Magadh Medical College Hospital (ANMMCH), Patna’s Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) Medical College and Pawapuri’s Vardhaman Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS), recently rechristened the Mahavira Medical College and Hospital. One seat each was allotted to Bettiah’s Government Medical College (GMC), Bhagalpur’s Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Hospital (JLNMCH) and the Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH) in Patna.
“A student ranked as high as 9,331 in the NEET is likely to join us after Saturday’s special stray vacancy round of online counselling,” said Dr Umesh Kumar Bhadani, dean (academics), AIIMS, Patna.
“The highest ranked medico to join our MBBS curriculum this year (academic session 2021-22) has a NEET position of 103. The highest rank holder was 869 for 2020-21 academic session,” he added.
Better students are now opting for our institute. This is an indication of the improvement in students’ perception about our institute, which is a good sign,” said Dr Bhadani.
Five of the six students allotted AIIMS-Patna in the special stray vacancy round rank between 9,331 and 19,793. The sixth student, however, has a rank of 1,05,598, according to the result on the MCC website. The seat, reserved for people with disability (PwD) in the SC category, has been converted to non-PwD, said sources.
Better students have preferred AIIMS over the other 10 state-run medical colleges, including Bihar’s oldest institution, the Patna Medical College Hospital.
The other 23 students rank between 19,745 and 1,07,719 in NEET-UG. Among them, the lowest ranked student in the reserved category has joined the Patna Medical College Hospital.
The special stray vacancy round was held to fill the vacant seats so that the all-India quota seats are not wasted at medical colleges after four rounds of all-India quota counselling between January and April.
The selected students have to report at the allotted medical college between April 24 and 28.
As many as 208 seats (15%) of the total 1,390 MBBS seats in Bihar government-run medical colleges are under all-India quota. In addition, there are 125 MBBS seats at AIIMS-Patna, all of which are filled through the NEET UG counselling.
This is the first time the Central government had gone for special stray vacancy round counselling, following the Supreme Court’s order, directing the Centre not to surrender any all-India quota seat to states.
Earlier, the Centre used to surrender to the respective states its unfilled MBBS seats after the all-India mop-up round, which was conducted after two rounds of counselling, said a government official.
