KARACHI, Aug 29: The process of admission to first year MBBS classes at government-run medical colleges and institutions in the city as well as the province for 2004-05 session began on Saturday with the sale of application forms and prospectus.
Unlike previous years, when forms were on sale for Karachi domiciled applicants at the Dow Medical College (DMC), students seeking admissions to the DMC and Sindh Medical College (SMC) can now get the prospectus and forms from TCS service centres for Rs100.
While, students from other districts of the province applying to the Liaquat University of Health Sciences (LUHS), Chandka Medical College (CMC) and Sardar Ghulam Muhammad Meher Medical College (SGMMMC) centres can get the forms and prospectus from principals or registrars of the institutions concerned.
Referring to the changes, the chairman of the Karachi selection centre, Prof Masood Hameed, who is the vice- chancellor of the Dow University of Health Sciences, said the sale and collection of admission forms and entry test forms at courier service centres would save the time of students.
"Now they don't need to visit the DMC for the purpose. They can purchase the forms and submit the same duly filled at centres located near their residences," he said. He added that the method was preferred, since the DMC was also facing space problems in the wake of the ongoing construction work on its premises.
Talking about the admission policy, he viewed that 25 students applying to the DMC could now be placed for admission at the LUHS, Jamshoro, against reciprocal seats.
It may be mentioned that the Sindh health department has increased the entrance test fee from Rs1,000 to Rs1,500, registering an increase of 115 per cent in the same since 2002. The fee was Rs700 in 2002-03.
It was further learnt that every applicant from Karachi would have to pay an additional Rs121 to the respective courier service centre for handling his or her application and related documents.
As such, a student aspiring to get admission to medical colleges would be required to spend a total of Rs1,721, right from buying the forms till their submission, which was unjust, according to some students.
The schedule of admission for MBBS and BDS admissions in the medical colleges through out the province is as follows: last date for receiving applications is September 18; entrance test will be on October 10; provisional list of district merit seats will be displayed on October 17; objections to provisional merit lists will be invited on October 22; final merit list will be displayed on October 30; invitation of self-finance applications (local and overseas from candidates) who would have already appeared in entry test of 2004- 05 will be from October 30 to November 5; and classes of the new session would be from November 1.
There has been no change in the allocation of seats for Karachi based students at the DMC and the SMC. The college-wise division of seats for the MBBS programme is: DMC, 290 (236 merit seats), SMC, 220 (168), LUMHS, 286 (232), CMC, 158 (104), Peoples Medical College, 141 (94), and SGMMMC, 119 (90).
A total of 77 seats, including 40 merit seats have been allocated for the BDS programme for candidates domiciled in Sindh. While under the self-finance scheme, a total of 206 seats have been allocated for MBBS and 40 seats for BDS.
The minimum qualification for a candidate to appear in the said entrance test to medical institutions of Sindh was intermediate science (pre-medical) or equivalent qualification with at least 60 per cent marks.
The formula for working out the overall merit for admission is: matric or equivalent marks, 10 per cent; inter-science marks, 40 per cent; and entry test marks, 50 per cent.
Candidates domiciled in the Karachi city district are required to apply at the DUHS, while candidates domiciled in Hyderabad, Thatta, Badin, Mirpurkhas, Tharparkar, Nawabshah and Sanghar should apply at LUMHS.
Similarly, candidates domiciled in Larkana, Dadu, Shikarpur and Jacobabad should apply at the CMC and those domiciled in Sukkur, Ghotki, Khairpur and Nuashehro feroze at SGMMMC.