Dental students urge Harish to take up issue with Union Ministry

Hyderabad: With the academic year getting delayed due to Covid pandemic, results getting delayed (April 2022) and also the internship getting delayed resulting in ineligibility to appear for NEET MDS-2023, the All-India Dental Students' Association has urged Health Minister T Harish Rao to take up the issue with the Union Health Ministry and resolve it.

Association president Dr MD Manzur Ahmed said that the BDS final year exams in Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS) Telangana were conducted from January 19 to February 19, 2022 (as the academic year was delayed due to Covid) and results were declared on April 11, 2022. The internship period of the 2017-18 batch was from April 12, 2022 to April 11, 2023. Consequently, all students of KNRUHS who are currently pursuing internship are not eligible for NEET MDS-2023, according to the given eligibility criteria by NBEMS. Dr Manzur said the dental students in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh were unable to concentrate on their studies due to major ongoing issues of internship eligibility criteria for NEET MDS-2023. With the NEET MDS-2022 special stray round counselling scheduled on January 10, 2023, MDS aspirants are also busy. Last year, due to a similar issue in internship completion date, DCI extended the cut-off date from March 31 to July 31.

The association also requested Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya to look into the matter and extend the cut-off date of internship completion mentioned in the NEET-MDS-23 eligibility criteria, clause 4.2 from March 31 to May 31, 2023. They urged the minister to consider future of students as they were anxious about the Covid scenario and the uncertainty of their careers.