Irregularities galore in admission process of homoeopathy colleges

Exams for the homoeopathy colleges are held in May every year. This year, the number of seats lying vacant at the time of the closure of admission in November, was over 300. In the last two years, the numbers have been equally large at over 350 vacant seats.

While the delay has, of late, become a trend, it has also brought about a large number of admission as well as eligibility-related irregularities as pointed out by the students. The vacant seats are later offered for direct admission.

Snehal Shah, a first-year homoeopathy student said: 8220;At the time of the acceptance of the application form, the eligibility criteria was 55 per cent marks. By the time the admission process got over, it was lowered to 35 per cent. In the process, some of my batchmates diverted to other options, while later on students with lower percentages secured admissions.8221;

Manish Doshi, an executive council member of Gujarat University, said that after a PIL was filed in 1994 to put a check on large-scale irregularities in the admission procedures, the process was centralised in 1996.

8220;However, the irregularities are fast setting in once again. On one hand, the unnecessary delay in the procedure has caused a loss of talented students as they divert away, on the other hand, it has become a money making business for the management, as they offer the vacant seats for a good price and reduce the eligibility criteria, giving a severe blow to the merit-based admission system,8221; Doshi added.