Kathmandu, November 11

Medical students today staged a protest against the Institute of Medicine seeking fair allocation of MBBS seats.

The agitating students accused the officials of IoM of irregularities and said that MBBS seats were not allocated on the basis of merit list.

One of the medical students told The Himalayan Times that he scored 74 marks in entrance exam and attended first open house counseling of MBBS programme, yet he was not able to get the seat at the college of his choice. “A student who scored 52 marks, however, got the seat,” he added.

“I wanted to study at Nepal Army Institute of Health Sciences, so I didn’t choose other colleges and waited for second open house counseling. But a student who scored less than me got a seat at that college,” he said.

Dr Milan Gaihre, president of Nepal Student Union at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, said students, who had already chosen a college should enrol within the time provided by the IoM and if they failed to enrol in time those seats would be provided to  other students.

“As many as 47 seats were given to students with low scores after those with high scores did not enrol themselves within the given time,” he said.

According to IoM Dean Dr Jagdish Prasad Agrawal, all students were provided opportunity to choose medical colleges on merit basis in the first open house counseling. After completing first counseling, students who did not enrol themselves in the colleges of their choice were called for second counseling. Second counseling was also conducted on merit basis.