Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, July 31 2010:
Including reserved seats, candidates belonging to the Other Backward Classes category have cornered maximum number of seats to pursue medical courses at Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS).
As per information culled by The Sangai Express out of the total number of 115 seats, 15 more is meant for Government of india's nominations while the share of JNIMS and RIMS stands at 85 and 30 seats respectively.
Out of this total, 50 percent is for general or unreserved category, whereas Scheduled Tribe candidates will get 31 percent, OBCs 17, Scheduled Castes two percent with one seat each reserved for meritorious sportsperson and wards of armed forces personnel/ex-servicemen.
Numerically, general category candidates will get 57 seats, ST 36, OBC 19 and SC 3 .
Even though there is policy of reservation of seats for medical courses in the State, there is no restriction for reserved category candidates getting entertained in the general class.
As such result of the PMT entrance test declared recently for medical courses this academic session has the largest number of OBC candidates in the merit list.
In the merit list from 1 to 115, OBC candidates occupy 85 of the seats with only 11 general category candidates figuring in the list, and ST and SC candidates numbering seven and nine respectively.
moreover, among the top 57 serial numbers, there are 47 OBC candidates with only six left for general category candidates followed by one and three for ST and SC respectively.
A official of Directorate of Health Services, speaking on condition of anonymity confided that issuance of ST and SC certificates by the Government is genuine whereas in case of such document to classify OBC candidates the procedure is questionable as there is no proper mechanism to authentic claims of belonging to OBC family.
Further informing that majority of the candidates who appeared in the PMT examination for MBBS and BDS courses were from the OBC category, the official also maintained that candidates who apply for BSc nursing or para-medical course are also mainly from the OBC group.
It is said that upto 2006-07 the criteria for issuing OBC certificates was based on annual income of Rs 2.5 lakhs whereas the ceiling at present has been raised to Rs 4.5 lakhs.
The official suggested need for close scrutiny by SDC concerned to authentic application for issuing OBC certificates.