NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: The National Medical Commission has proposed 100% centralised admissions in medical institutes across the country — government, private and deemed.

The single-step counselling process is intended to save students the anxiety of the long-drawn admission process through which more than 1 lakh MBBS seats are filled up every year.An NMC gazette dated June 2 said “there shall be common counselling for admission to graduate courses for all medical institutions in India based on the merit list of NEET-UG”.

It added that the government would appoint a designated authority for common counselling and decide its method for all undergraduate seats.A top official from NMC said the proposal will be deliberated upon by the Centre and the states, and can be implemented only when they agree on the modalities to be adopted.The purpose behind introducing a centralised system for counselling is to bring uniformity to the process, he told TOI.

“It is not at all meant to infringe on the rights of the states or disturb the various quotas for allocation of undergraduate medical seats.”Since the counselling system is not centralised, there are often complaints about delays and precious medical seats left vacant in the end, the official explained.

A centralised counselling matrix may help solve this problem.Parents and counsellors said it would promote merit and transparency and weed out agents and deal-makers who auction medical seats.

The process of admission is currently divided between the Centre — 15% all-India quota seats and 100% deemed university seats — and states: 85% seats in government colleges and all seats in private medical schools.The gazette read: “No medical institute shall admit any candidate to the graduate medical education course in contravention of these regulations”.

In case of violation, the gazette said an institute “shall be liable to be fined Rs 1 crore or the fee for the entire course duration, whichever is higher, per seat” for the first instance of violation.

It will be steeper for subsequent non-compliance, including barring all admission.The reaction from state governments is mixed.

While states like Tamil Nadu feel the Centre is “infringing” on their right of filing up seats in their government-run colleges, an official from Maharashtra’s Directorate of Medical Education Research (DMER) said he had not seen the gazette, but the state would agree to merging its process with the Centre.

“I have been told it is a proposal, on which the NMC is seeking suggestions.

It will be finalised only after receiving inputs from all stakeholders...

if the Centre moots any such proposal, we will be okay with it,” said the official.Former DMER director Dr Pravin Shingare applauded the move but said there could be logistical difficulties.

“It will avoid wastage of MBBS seats and will prevent meritorious students from blocking multiple seats.

The only hurdle is the availability of all options in the software at one and the same time for each student,” said Shingare.Parent representative Sudha Shenoy said students are elated over the “common counselling” idea.

“This, if implemented, promises total transparency in all medical seat allotment pan-India,” said Brijesh Sutaria, another parent representative.