24 in-service super speciality seats remain vacant; Minister seeks stray round of counselling
In a letter to Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda on Monday, Mr. Subramanian said that as per the directions of the Supreme Court, 50% of super speciality seats in government medical colleges in Tamil Nadu are reserved for in-service candidates. Now, 24 in-service seats remain vacant. Due to changes in the counselling guidelines, including a notification from the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) dated June 21 permitting upgradation in the stray round, the State's Selection Committee has received representations seeking an additional round of counselling to fill these vacancies.
He requested the Union Minister's intervention to permit the State government to conduct an extended stray round of counselling for in-service candidates to fill up the 24 vacancies in super speciality courses and to complete the process on or before August 5. This, he said, will help strengthen the availability of specialists in government institutions across the State.
This year, the State had to surrender 145 super speciality medical seats meant for in-service candidates to the All India Quota counselling before conducting its second round of counselling. This came after the DGHS asked the State to revert the vacant in-service seats to the Medical Counselling Committee for all-India counselling. The Minister had written to the Union Health Minister regarding the surrender of super speciality seats on June 11.
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