Private medical colleges in Maharashtra will have to keep 85 per cent seats for local students

Medical students and their parents in a celebratory mood outside the Bombay High Court after the ruling. Admissions will finally begin

Private medical colleges in Maharashtra will have to keep 85 per cent seats only for those with domicile of origin in the state. This after the Bombay High Court ruled in the favour of parents, paving the way for the Directorate of Medical Education and Research to finally begin the admission process, which had been stalled for a long time.

Candidates and parents could not stop rejoicing after the HC ruling.

"This has been a great relief to students as well as parents. The students have worked so hard in preparing for the hastily implemented National Entrance and Eligibility Test (NEET) in just a few days. If colleges would have got students from outside Maharashtra, it would have been a grave injustice to those here," said Jasmine Gogri, an aggrieved parent.

Students relieved
One of the candidates, Minal Shah, said how she is still stressed considering the way events in the recent past have transpired. "Every time we felt things were sorted, there was a jolt," she added.

"After NEET was mandated, the state approached the Supreme Court, seeking exemption from it for this academic year, which was fair because we had spent two years preparing for the state Common Entrance Test (CET) and were told a couple of months ago that NEET score would be the only criterion for admission to medical courses across country.

When that was done, deemed universities managed to get HC's nod to conduct admissions on their own without state regulation. Private colleges also asked for their right to admit meritorious candidates, to open the door for students from all-India ranking. Where would we have gone in that case?

"I am happy now that the admission process will soon begin. But what's scary is that we don't know if another bolt is on the horizon, because though deemed universities managed to begin admissions, those who secured a seat are now in a fix as the state has challenged it in the Supreme Court," Shah said.

Another parent, Ruhi Kapoor, said, "When a student has prepared for the CET for more than two years, what s/he scores in NEET with just a couple of months of preparation cannot decide his/her merit."

‘No one thought of them'
Several parents from across Maharashtra had got together in their fight against the problems in medical education. An online petition had also been started to pressure the government in thinking about state's students who were way down in the all-India ranking of NEET as they had had less time to prepare for it.

"This year, the NEET was introduced all of a sudden just because some NGO wanted it immediately. Nobody thought about the students. The result was students in Maharashtra scored less than those from other states - they got just 70 days for two years' worth of work. As the admission process began, private medical colleges and deemed universities wanted freedom to admit students. The rampant corruption and exorbitant fees are there for all to see. A majority of seats in state's colleges has been taken by those from outside. This is not fair. Where should the students here go then?" questioned Shobha Lande, a parent who started the online petition.

Now, whether the students' woes have finally come to an end or this just a temporary reprieve is yet unknown as private colleges plan to challenge the HC ruling in the Supreme Court.