by Farzana Nisar
Srinagar
Contradicting the statement made by Minister for Health and Medical Education Bali Bhagat on the floor of assembly in Jammu, J&K Board of Professional Entrance Examinations (BOPEE) has issued notification for post-graduate courses in Government Dental College & Hospital Srinagar with the same number of seats, 12.
The aspirants of the valley who had qualified NEET-MDS had urged the government to increase the intake capacity for MDS in dental colleges of Kashmir.
Accordingly, the minister had claimed in the house that GDC intends to increase the intake capacity to three seats annually in six specialties. Earlier the college had intake capacity of two admissions annually in each specialty including Conservative Dentistry & Endodontics, Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery; Periodontics; Oral Medicine and Radiology; Prosthodontics, Crown & Bridge and Orthodontics & Dentofacial Orthopaedics, taking the overall number to 12.
The notification, students was shocking as according to the to the tentative seat matrix of BOPEE, the total number of seats of MDS in the state is 12.
“Health Minister had given a statement to increase the seats in all the six disciplines but Board on Wednesday issued the statement that they will start counseling for only 12 seats. This is totally contradictory” , said Nida Farooq, an aspirant.
As the counseling will start within few days and being so close to the merit we will again get dropped by few points because the seats are already very less”, she added.
“This time we were expecting an increase in the number of seats but the according to the seat distribution issued by BOPEE the order is yet to be implemented”, said Owais Rasool, another candidate. “We have to submit our documents up to 1st of March and after that counseling will start. Once the counseling gets started, increasing the seats is futile”, Owais added.
The candidates urged chief minister Mehbooba Mufti to look into the matter personally and implement the order immediately.
Kashmir Life tried to contact Bali Bhagat, however, after many attempts, he could not be contacted for comments.
