Bhubaneswar: With registrations for counselling of candidates who successfully cleared National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) 2017 meant for admissions into various medical and dental colleges for MBBS and BDS degrees already underway; Odisha is ready with the tentative dates for its own counselling for admissions into colleges in the State. Students are caught in a dilemma over the All-India counselling and the State counselling. Talking to OTV, OJEE chairman Tushar Nath recommends students to be disciplined and judicious while choosing colleges. Here are the excerpts of the interview.
On State level counselling...
A tentative schedule of counselling and available seats has been notified on our website. We recommend students to wait till the time we publish a full-fledged schedule and the detailed process of counselling. Tentatively, we are planning to start the registration process from July 15.
On NEET-qualified students from State...
For NIT-qualified students, Government of India has a 15% quota for government seats. The rest 85% have to be filled up through counselling by States. For the time being the NEET-qualified students of the State should be aware that they can register for 15 % All-India government seats quota across all colleges on the website -www.mcc.nic.in/. Similarly, students can apply for all the deemed universities of the country on the website separately. The registrations for these have already begun, so interested students can apply separately for government seats and deemed university seats. For the rest 85% seats, in case of Odisha, registration process will tentatively start from July 15.
On dilemma over NEET & State counselling...
This issue is currently governed by the guidelines of the Supreme Court. As per the court guidelines all the state counselling can only proceed after the National-level counselling. Those who get selected into Government of India colleges and take admissions are not eligible to participate in any other counselling. Hence, parents and students should decide as to which counselling they want to participate and the colleges.
Restrictions pertaining to counselling & admissions?
There are absolutely no restrictions as far as registrations into the various counselling goes. The restriction will apply in case a student takes part in a particular counselling and takes admission on being selected in the same. One taken admission, he/she cannot take part in other counselling. The norm followed here is that if a student takes admission in a particular medical college, he/she should not look forward to block seats elsewhere. Students should be disciplined enough.
Recommendations to students...
The advantage of online counselling is that a student can take part in the process to assess his eligibility for colleges. If a student is satisfied then go ahead with admission. If not satisfied don’t take admission so that other options remain open. If a student is not happy with the All-India allotment then he is recommended not to take admission.
How students will know their ranks for State counselling?
Once the registrations for the State-conducted counselling are over, we will come out with the NEET mark and the All-India ranks for registered students only so that they can compare.