The candidates of NEET PG from Jammu Kashmir have expressed anguish over the proposal of pooling 50% PG seats in the region in All India Quota.
In a press release issued to The Kashmiriyat, the students said, Whereas it has been recommended that J&K would participate in the All India Quota for PG seats for 50% of its total seat capacity from 2022.Whereas the UT of J&K currently has a very small pool of PG seats comprising of a few hundred seats unlike those UTs/States of India which participate in All India Quota and have thousands of medical PG seats.
Under the guidelines for implementation of All India Quota wherein 50 percent seats from GMCs and 100 percent seats from SKIMS would be filled through the same, only 172 seats would be reserved for the domiciled aspirants of J&K rendering a loss of 350 seats out of the total 522 seats available at present implying that 70 percent of seats would be written off with a meagre 30 percent seats earmarked for the destitute region, the press release added.
The students said, Whereas undergraduate MBBS courses have been started at five newly constructed Government Medical Colleges i.e GMC Anantnag, GMC Baramulla, GMC Rajouri, GMC Doda and GMC Kathua but no PG seats have been allotted to these colleges yet. The increasing number of MBBS graduates from the UT, which has roughly grown by three times in recent years necessitates the availability of more PG seats to be made available to the UT exclusively for proportionate accommodation.
The allotment of PG seats to these Medical Colleges is expected to be expedited soon, it read.
Keeping the above in view, it can be inferred that pooling PG seats in All India Quota at this juncture would not be of significant benefit to the aspiring PG candidates of J&K as it would drastically reduce the number of UT seats which is already meagre. It is also pertinent to mention here that unlike other states of India, there are no bondage rules in existence for medical post graduation programme in the UT of J&K. As a result, PG scholars from other states would not contribute to the overall no. of specialists in the state.
“Whereas for doctors belonging to J&K, pursuing PG programme in different state colleges of India would have be to substantiated by subscribing to a working bond of 4-6 years. This would consequently reduce the doctor-patient ratio in the region drastically which is already very grim,” the students said in the press release.
As such, we humbly request the government of UT of J&K to kindly consider our demand to delay the pooling of PG seats from UT of J&K in All India Quota until PG seats are allotted to new Medical Colleges so that J&K could participate in All India Quota without affecting the overall seat balance, they added.
We hope that our request would attain favourable consideration, read the press release.