Hyderabad: Several Andhra Pradesh students have gained admission to government medical colleges in the state of Telangana, including the prestigious Gandhi and Osmania, allegedly in violation of the rules, depriving local students of the opportunity to join these top-level institutions.
The assignment process adopted by Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS) in counseling phase 2 resulted in at least 40 AP students, most of whom would not otherwise be eligible, made it to the Government universities in Telangana state and locals lost an equal number of seats.
The process also virtually turned the “non-reserved category”, in which deserving students compete for position regardless of their local status, caste, or religion, into a “reserved” category for non-local students.
All students from Gandhi and Osmania medical schools who gained admission to the non-reserved category in Phase 2 counseling belong to the Andhra University or Sri Venkateswara University regions and the same is true for many others government universities in the state of Telangana.
Significantly, the NTR University of Health Sciences (NTRUHS), AP, which initially followed the same procedure as KNRUHS, canceled the Phase 2 counseling assignments stating that it was defective. He claimed to have rectified the error and made new awards in a different procedure.
What’s intriguing is that Kaloji University also canceled Phase 2 counseling for technical reasons. Except for including two students in Phase 2 counseling following Superior Court orders, he adhered to the above procedure.
“Both universities cannot be right because the procedures they followed are completely opposite,” said Dr. Ala Venkateswarlu from Guntur, who complained about the flawed procedure in AP and rectified it. “The only difference between the two procedures is that local Telangana state students were deprived of seats due to the Kaloji University procedure,” he added. Previously, he filed a public interest litigation (PIL) and got the AP government to implement the reserve rule by sliding under Supreme Court rulings.
According to admissions rules, 15 percent of the vacancies at each college are declared “unreserved” and the remaining 85 percent are reserved exclusively for local students. Phase 1 counseling was conducted strictly using this procedure in both states.
But, when a vacancy arises in the “unreserved” quota during Phase 2 counseling, a student who has already obtained a seat in the state of Telangana under the “local quota” should be raised to the “unreserved” quota if is more deserving than the student from the AU or SVU regions. In such case, there will be a vacancy in the “local quota” that can be filled with another student from the state of Telangana.
But, KNRUHS authorities held the local TS student in the local category and filled the vacancy in the “no reserve” category with non-local students. As a result, not only ineligible non-local students were able to gain admission in the “no reservation” quota, but local students were also deprived of seats.
When contacted, KNRUHS Registrar Dr. Praveen initially tried to justify the decision by saying that students from other states did not join and therefore those seats would be filled by local students in phase 3 counseling. When asked what would happen if they joined the university, he said the admission committee members could better explain the procedure followed by the university. He assured this reporter that a member of the intake committee would call and clarify, but no one reached out until the report was presented.
According to the admissions procedure adopted by the NTR University of Health Sciences (NTRUHS), the student with rank 6784 was admitted to Andhra Medical College, Visakhapatnam, at the “local” quota of 85 percent in Phase 1 counseling.
During Phase 2 counseling, his status changed to the 15 percent “unreserved” fee due to which another AP student gained admission to the “local” fee.
According to the admissions procedure adopted by Kaloji University of Health Sciences, the student with rank 1445 obtained admission to Gandhi Medical College, Secunderabad, at the local fee in phase one.
In Phase 2 counseling, there were eight openings in the “no reserve” quota. The status of the first eight students to gain admission at the “local” fee remained the same. However, as they had outperformed students in the AU and SVU regions, they should have been pushed to the “no reserve” quota as a result of which there would be eight seats in the “local” quota.
But, the “unreserved” quota seats were filled by AU and SVU students who would otherwise have no chance of competing with Telangana State students due to their lower ranks. As a result, eight local students from the state of Telangana missed the opportunity to study at Gandhi Medical College.
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