Apex court's nod to e-counselling for PG medical courses

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday permitted the online counseling for allotment of 50 percent seats of all-India quota for admission in post graduate medical courses in the country.

A bench of Justice Deepak Verma and Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan paved the way for the e-counselling for admission in post graduate medical courses when it gave its nod to the suggestion by the director general of health services for internet counselling.

Under the e-counselling allocation of courses and colleges, the candidates would not be required to come to counselling centre and could exercise their choice over internet from anywhere.

Under the e-counselling, the candidates need not come for the second and proposed third round of counselling for the allotment of courses and colleges to the counselling centre.

After allotment of seats, the candidates would join at allotted college and from there itself one would give option to participate in further rounds of counselling (allotment process). The candidate's choice would be upgraded subject to the availability of his higher choice, under the new e-counselling procedure.

Now with the proposed on-line allotment system, college and subject seats are proposed to be reserved for various categories - scheduled castes/tribes, other backward classes, physically handicapped - in central government institutions.

The identification of seats would be done by arranging seats in alphabetic order, statewise, college-wise on a 3,200 point roster in non-central government institutions and 200 point in central government institutions.

The National Informatics Centre (NIC) is in the process of developing software and method similar to one used for the allotment of seats to candidates of All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE). The new e-counsel scheme would come into force from the coming academic year and would commence from May.