Meghalaya Govt allots 39 MBBS seats to Khasi-Jaintia, 37 Garo under State quota

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaSeptember 2, 2023

The Meghalaya health and family welfare department has completed the allocation of MBBS seats in various medical institutions under the State quota.

“Out of the 92 seats available under the State quota, 39 seats were allotted to candidates from the Khasi and Jaintia category, including two candidates who were selected in Open category and one candidate of Person with Disability (PwD), 37 to Garo candidates, 12 to Open category candidates; and 4 to Other Scheduled Tribe candidates,” Health Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh said on Saturday.

“The two candidates who were shifted to the Khasi and Jaintia bucket from the Open category list, have been included as the top two candidates within that category, based on their scores, to enable allotment of their preferred colleges,” she said.

The minister said, “This year we’ve managed to increase our seat allocation by 10 additional seats.”

“Further, there was no policy earlier to ensure proper allocation of seats based on merit and preference across the social categories. This we have ensured was put in place,” she added.

A statement by the health department said that the allocation process has attempted to balance the principle of merit with the principle of social equity as outlined in the Meghalaya State Reservation Policy.

“In the first round, the highest scoring candidate from the Open category was allotted a seat according to their first preference. This was according to the principle of merit, as the highest scoring candidate of the state was given the first choice. Then, the highest scoring candidate from the Khasi and Jaintia category was allotted the seat of their preference, followed by the top-scoring Garo candidate and Other Scheduled Tribe (OST) candidates, respectively. In each successive round of allotment, the principle of equitable distribution was applied as per the methodology outlined in Notification No. Health.306/2021/21, as notified by the Health and Family Welfare Department, on 13th May, 2022,” it said.

The statement said that in the second round, the second highest-scoring candidate from the Khasi and Jaintia category was first allotted a seat. This was followed by allocation for candidates from the Garo, OST, and Open categories, respectively.

In the third round, the highest-scoring Garo candidate was first allotted a seat. This was followed by allocation for the OST category candidate, Open category candidate, and Khasi and Jaintia category candidate, respectively.

“Thus, in each round of allotment, the first preference in seat allotment was given on a rotational basis to candidates from the Open, Khasi and Jaintia, Garo, and OST categories,” the department stated.