Scam most foul: Midnight controversy in MP private medical admissions again

Special Correspondent

NewsBits.in

Bhopal: Despite Supreme Court orders and continuing resistance from aspirants and activists, the directorate of medical education of Madhya Pradesh managed to stir controversy late on Friday night by allotting over 400 private medical seats through offline counseling.

The Vyapam scam hit state is in throes of huge medical admission controversy again.

The medical aspirants, their parents, students’ organization ABVP and activists including ex-MLA Paras Saklecha have cried foul over the ‘irregular’ allotments of private medical seats for session 2016-17..

They have alleged that the seats were ‘sold off’ for as much as Rs 50-60 lakh per seat by the private medical colleges in connivance with the senior officials of the medical education department.

The scam is to the tune of over Rs 250 crores, the activists and aspirants have alleged.

The local unit of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) held a demonstration at the Gandhi Medical College at midnight of Friday, alleging irregularities and bias in favour of private medical colleges.

The ABVP demanded to know why the online counseling was stopped at 1.00pm and offline counseling started at 7.00pm. The stand of the director of medical education (DME) Dr GS Patel that the offline counseling was according to Supreme Court directive did not cut ice with the aspirants and the ABVP activists who asked the DME to show the court order.

The situation was brought under control by intervention of district administration and police officials.

“We would meet the principal secretary and minister of medical education and demand scrapping of the allotments and fresh counseling,” ABVP city general secretary Harsh Chandel told NewsBits.in

Activist Paras Saklecha told NewsBits.in that during online counseling between 6.00am on October 6 and 1.00pm on October 7, only 262 seats (out of the vacant 730 seats) were allotted. Later in offline counseling between 7.00pm and 12 midnight over 400 seats were allotted.

Candidates of other states were allowed admissions in this offline round despite Supreme Court directive of preference to MP domicile candidates.

“There was no reason to suddenly stop online centralized counseling as directed by Supreme Court and start an offline process late in evening of October 7 – the last date of admission. There is a strong whiff of scam and crores have exchanged hands,” Saklecha alleged while speaking to NewsBits.in.

Saklecha has filed a petition with the MP High Court seeking stay on the counseling conducted by the DME on October 6 and 7. After the chief justice turned down an appeal for urgent hearing, the matter is likely to come up in court on October 13, the petitioner said.

The DME Dr Patel while speaking to media insisted that the counseling was done according to Supreme Court orders and non-domicile candidates were allowed only on vacant seats. He said offline counseling of vacant seats was allowed by SC.

Earlier on September 29, a major controversy had erupted when 871 seats were allotted in private medical colleges within 2 minutes after the MP Online website suddenly started working after being down for several hours.

The admissions were later cancelled and a fresh list of 730 vacant seats presented in Supreme Court.