Kerala: 350 private MBBS seats likely transferred to AIQ

Around 350 MBBS general category seats of 19 private medical colleges in Kerala are likely to be transferred to All India Quota (AIQ) seats.

The Director of Medicine Education (DME) in Kerala has written to the additional chief secretary of the health department to issue an order for transferring as many as 350 MBBS seats of 19 self-financing medical colleges in the state to All India Quota (AIQ) seats.

The seats are currently for the students of Kerala and if the state government decides to transfer it to AIQ, the management of these colleges might take legal recourse. This decision could even affect this year's admission process.

The DME's move came after the Supreme Court's interim order of 2019 in a plea filed by a private medical college managements association. Besides the 15% Non-Resident Indian (NRI) seats, all private colleges have been instructed to assign 15% seats to the entrance exam commissioner to be allotted on an All-India basis. The entrance exam commissioner will allot these 15% seats for candidates from outside the state.

As per the DME letter, only a few colleges have obeyed this instruction despite the Kerala University of Health Sciences has issued a circular and the same was requested by the entrance exam commissioner.

Meanwhile, MBBS and BDS aspirants whose names were mentioned in the state rank list published by the Entrance Commissioner as per the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Undergraduate) or NEET, 2021 could apply for the first phase of option submission for undergraduate medical admission in the state by January 29 and the first allotment will be published on Feb 2.

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