Medical admissions: Only 28,500 out of 40,000 forms received

CHENNAI: The directorate of medical education, which sold more than 40,000 admission forms, received only 28,500 filled in forms for MBBS and BDS seats. Thursday was the last day for submission of these forms.
Selection committee secretary R G Sukumaran said they were still receiving a few applications by post. “We will be accepting postal dispatches, which were sent before the deadline,” said Sukumaran.
The first phase of counselling will begin on July 2, he said. Educational consultants have predicted that admissions could get tougher this year as there was an overall drop in the cutoff.
There was a rush for medical applications this year and sources said government earned Rs 1.4 crore from sale of application forms (it costs Rs 500 per form and nearly 12,000 applications were given free to SC/ST candidates).
There are 17 government medical colleges with 1,945 seats in the state. This year, Tamil Nadu is likely to add 285 seats in government medical colleges and has asked the Medical Council of India to increase seats in four medical colleges.