GILGIT, Nov 12: Although admissions to medical colleges throughout the country have been closed, students of Gilgit-Baltistan are still waiting for their nomination against reserved seats in various professional colleges.

The government has approved a quota of 44 seats in different medical colleges and the Directorate of Education, Northern Areas, has nominated students against the reserved quota.

This process should have been completed by now, but the Directorate of Education continues to sit on the nomination file, putting the future of students at stake.

The students were of the view that after a lapse of a certain time period the management of professional colleges did not accept the nomination papers.

When contacted, an official of the nomination branch said the issue was confidential and the reasons behind the delay in the nominations could not be made public.

However, he said the nomination committee, which was headed by the Northern Areas chief executive, is likely to be convened soon which would finalise the nomination.

He said the department realised the loss being suffered by the students but it was unable to expedite the process because the nomination committee had to see as to who was to be nominated. He said the meeting of the committee had not been convened by the region’s chief executive, Mir Ghazanfar Ali Khan, and the whole process might take about 10 to 15 days.

The official said the committee had completed the nomination of students for admission to engineering colleges but a similar process for admission to medical colleges had been delayed due to some reasons.