On the first day of online registration for the NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) counselling 2016, students from Maharashtra faced major confusion as the government of Maharashtra notified the students at the eleventh hour about the admission policy for deemed universities. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and the Minister for Higher and Medical Education Girish Mahajan took the final decision and allowed the 1,800 medical seats of deemed universities in the state, to be filled through NEET scores on August 21, 2016. According to the new notification, students willing to take admission in medical and dental colleges under deemed universities in the state, need to submit their information online under NEET counselling 2016.
As the students came to know that the information submitted by them would be used to prepare the NEET UG- 2016 Maharashtra State Provincial Merit List for Deemed Universities, they started to get panicked and were left fumbling over the entire process. They got confused over the fact whether centralized admissions mean a combined merit list for both the categories. Department of Medical Education and Research (DMER) have not yet taken out the detailed schedule for the admission process. Students have been told to fill their forms before August 24, 2016, through the official notice.
Almost 1600 private college seats along with the 1800 deemed college seats for MBBS and BDS courses will be filled through NEET scores, this year. Over 2810 seats in the government medical colleges in the state would be filled through the MH-CET (Maharashtra Common Entrance Test) scores.
As per the final Supreme Court order, there were no binding rules carved out for deemed institutes and students were waiting for the decision to be taken by the state government. Government-run medical colleges had already started the admission procedure in the last month, as they were following the MH-CET scores in the state. But, the students willing to apply to private and deemed universities were waiting for the NEET results and the stand taken up by the state government on seats of deemed universities. Quite a few deemed universities in the state have already started to receive applications as they were following the Supreme Court ruling regarding NEET being the only examination for medical and dental admissions.