PGMET re-exam tomorrow

Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh High Court has on Friday- quashed a batch of writ petitions filed by 91 aspirants of Post Graduate Medical Entrance Examination challenging holding of the test again after a massive scam that resulted in leakage of question paper. With this decks have been cleared for conducting the re-examination on Sunday, April 27.

As many as 540 new students have registered themselves for the PGMET in addition to more than 14,000 students who have appeared for the test last time. The results are expected in a ten days time, according to Dr Raviraj, Vice-Chancellor of the NTR University of Health Sciences.

Stringent measures have been taken for the re-exam. “This time, we are not going to take any chances. All the staff members who were engaged in the conduct of the exam last time are changed. The invigilators, chief superintendents will be changed. No scope for malpractices will be given.” Vice- Chancellor told The Hans India. Stating that not even a pouch will be allowed inside the exam centre, he said “There will be frisking at three places after entering the centre. Students should cooperate with us.”

Five sets of question papers were reportedly prepared at various places and one among them will be picked up randomly half-an-hour before the commencement of the exam, top sources said.

The printing centre was also changed as the scam that broke out was originally hatched at the printing press in Manipal last time.

There are more than 3000 seats in MD MS and PG Diploma courses in various medical colleges in the state.

It might be recalled that the PGMET was cancelled after a huge scam involving brokers, students and reportedly some staff of NTRUHS broke out. CID which swung into action immediately after the Governor directed the probe agency to conduct a thorough investigation has unraveled that it was a Rs 70-crore scam. Even top rankers of the PGMET were arrested demonstrating the vulnerability of the system. The CID at one point of time said that the scam has been going on every year but this was only time when it came to light.

More aspirants for a less number of seats were cited as reason for this kind of scams. For a total of six thousand students who have been coming out completing their MBBS annually, only 3000 seats are available. In addition, there has been a big demand for some super speciality branches such as dermatology, radiology, pediatrics, orthopedics etc.