Will look into it: FC H&ME
Irfan Tramboo
SRINAGAR, May 24: The aspirants for Post-Graduate dental courses of J&K have been left high and dry as they are still waiting for the counselling for this year despite the results declared by the NEET in December last year.
The NEET-MDS exams were held on December 16 last year and the results were declared on December 31. However, since then, neither the counselling has been held by the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC), nor has the BOPEE bothered to issue the state merit list.
Every year, the counselling session is held jointly for the PG medical and dental courses, which, the aspirants told Excelsior they had no problem with.
However, this year, while the NEET-PG has already been postponed till August 31 due to pandemic, the NEET-MDS counselling is also witnessing immense delay.
“Why do we have to see so much delay, we have worked hard to qualify the exam and now we are witnessing undue delay even when they can do hold our cancelling separately without waiting for the NEET-PG to be held; despite delay last year due to COVID, the last batch joined on 25th May,” Dr Masroor Shah (NEET-MDS AIR 241), told Excelsior.
Ideally, the aspirants said that the State merit used to come in March and counselling would start in April and joining would take place in May. However, they said that till now nothing has happened and they are being told to wait, “which is injustice and sheer wastage of time,” the aspirants said,
They demanded separate counselling for NEET-MDS as well as immediate issuance of state merit list followed by counselling for the respective discipline.
It is to be noted here that the process of counselling takes place entirely online and hasn’t got anything to do with the COVID protocols.
Further, the aspirants said that there is no notification issued from BOPEE and the board has not even acknowledged it. “They (BOPEE) used to upload state merit list of all the candidates who have appeared in NEET-MDS and after that counselling would begin,” they said.
When the issue was brought to the notice of the BOPEE officials, they said they are waiting for the Central authorities and there was nothing in their hands. However, Financial Commissioner, Health & Medical Education Department Atal Dulloo told Excelsior that he will do the needful in this regard.
Meanwhile, the Society of Dental Surgeons, J&K’s president, Dr Imityaz Banday told Excelsior that the authorities must ensure that the precious time of the MDS aspirants is not wasted and the counselling is held without any further delay.
“These aspirants work hard and should not be let down; the Government also needs to give more focus towards the speciality so that it grows efficiently,” he said.
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