MUMBAI: The Maharashtra govt has become the last state to abolish the controversial institutional quota round for medical admissions. Additionally, the state govt has decided to bar for two years candidates who participate in admission rounds, block seats and then do not end up taking admission anywhere. “The selected candidates who do not report or do not join their allotted seat in the last round of the admission process, thereby resulting in the lapse of their seat, shall not be eligible for admission for the subsequent two years,” said the gazette.
The medical college admission rules have been revised after a gap of 10 years.
The move will leave private medical colleges with little independent discretion in filling seats at the end of the admission cycle and is expected to make the process more transparent and merit-driven.
Private colleges, said skeptics, may challenge this gazette in court.
“All admissions to medical and dental undergraduate courses will be done by the competent authority only through online centralised admission process (CAP) rounds, including online stray vacancy rounds or subsequent stray vacancy rounds,” said the state gazette released on Monday.
Students who have opted for physics, chemistry and biotechnology instead of biology in Class XII and cleared the entrance test will also be eligible to participate in the admission rounds.
The institutional round has long been criticised by parents, students and medical education activists, who have alleged that it enables arbitrary fee demands, last-minute allotments and admissions that do not always follow the published merit order. “Repeated concerns raised during earlier admission cycles led to discussions on whether the institutional round should continue at all,” said Siddhesh Nar, senior official in the CET cell.
Maharashtra was the only state to retain such a system. Medical admissions in other states are conducted entirely through centralised counselling.
Parent representative Sudha Shenoy said the change would bring Maharashtra in line with directions previously issued by the National Medical Commission (NMC). “Two years ago, the NMC directed that all undergraduate and postgraduate medical seats should be filled through a centralised admission process. Maharashtra was the only state that continued with the institutional round,” she said.
The process has also repeatedly run into legal and regulatory complications. In 2023, Maharashtra conducted an offline institutional quota round, but the students admitted through it were not recognised by the NMC. The following year, the state initially decided against holding the round. However, after a private medical college approached the court, an online institutional quota process was conducted.
To date, since medical admissions began, students who remained without a seat after the online CAP rounds become eligible for the institutional round conducted by individual private colleges.
Critics alleged that although colleges published merit lists, the final allotments often deviated from merit. Colleges claimed that after higher-ranked candidates did not report, seats were allegedly offered to lower-ranked students willing to pay substantially higher amounts. This would stop now.
Medical education activists said abolishing the institutional round closes a significant regulatory gap, reducing the scope for malpractice and ensuring that admissions to private medical colleges are governed by a uniform, transparent and merit-based process.
