Delhi
Edition, 10th July 2008
New Delhi: Only girls will get to pursue medicine
under the OBC quota in Delhi University this year. Boys
will have to wait. Out of the three medical colleges in
DU, only Lady Hardinge Medical College, which is for girls,
is implementing OBC reservations this year. The two co-ed
colleges — Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC) and
University College for Medical Sciences (UCMS) — have
decided not to increase their seats for now, leaving many
male candidates, who qualified for counselling, in the lurch.
On Wednesday, the male candidates from the OBC category
who appeared for counselling were in for a shock. They were
turned back from the counselling venue on North Campus.
‘‘DU had called the first 100 rank holders in
the OBC category but the boys were told that there was no
OBC quota for now. How could they make space for just girls,’’
asked Ramesh Kumar, who ranked 65 on the OBC merit list
in the DU Medical Entrance Test held on May 18 this year.
The problem lies in the different set of rules governing
these colleges. Lady Hardinge being a centrally-run college
has gone ahead with the quota this year but MAMC is run
by Delhi government, which has not increased the number
of seats as yet. As for UCMS, though the institute had planned
an expansion this year, it was disapproved by the Medical
Council of India (MCI).
‘‘We had earlier called the OBC students for
counselling because some seats would have been reserved
for them in UCMS. But the MCI sent its disapproval only
in the first week of this month and we did not go ahead
with the quota. MCI wanted to inspect the situation in the
college before giving its go-ahead,’’ said Usha
Rusia, dean, faculty of medical sciences, Delhi University.
She added that MAMC is not implementing the OBC quota because
DU has not yet got any direction from Delhi government to
increase the seats by 5% as it had announced earlier. DU
has 410 seats for MBBS and 40 seats for BDS across three
colleges. DU had scheduled the counselling for OBCs for
July 9 but the university put up a notice on its website
a day earlier asking male OBC candidates not to appear for
counselling. On Wednesday, while the male candidates protested,
14 girls from OBC category were given admission in Lady
Hardinge. According to Rusia, those from the OBC category
can appear for counselling being held for the general category
on Thursday and Friday.
However, the OBC candidates are now planning to move the
high court if DU doesn’t find a solution. ‘‘DU
had released a separate merit list for OBCs when the result
was announced. A few days later, it came out with a combined
merit list. How do we appear for counselling when we are
unaware of our merit in the general category,’’
asked another MBBS aspirant.
