Ashwini Kumar Choubey, the Minister of State Health and Family Welfare informed that there are more than 437 medical seats that lie vacant for various MBBS programmes for the academic year 2017-18.
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The minister informed the parliament on 23 March 2018 that the designated authority for conducting counselling for admission to MBBS courses is Directorate General of Health Services. They are responsible for All India Quota seats and all MBBS seats of Medical Institutions which are established by the Parliament and the Deemed Universities. However, counselling of all others is taken care by State/ Union Territory Government.
He also mentioned that All India Quota Seats that take up to 15% of the total medical seats in the country, lie vacant even after the last date for joining. According to the records, the government is to convert these seats into state quota so that the seats are filled up by the respective state.
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According to him, it is unethical to fill the vacant seats with the NEET qualifiers before the NEET 2018 exam. Since the process of admission to various medical programmes is conducted through a common counselling that follows a statutory time schedule. According to which, no admission in MBBS course is allowed to the candidates after 31 August. The registration process for NEET 2018 has already started and the exam will take place on 6 May 2018.