Around 1,000 med students yet to get their security deposit from colleges

Chennai: Refund of security deposit to nearly 1,000 applicants to undergraduate courses in medicine is pending with the state selection committee as details including bank accounts were either wrong or did not match the records, selection committee announced.

Students applying for undergraduate courses paid ₹30,000 for admission to government colleges and ₹1lakh for admission to self-financing colleges/private medical universities as a security deposit to reduce vacancies. The admission for the MBBS / BDS courses for 2023-2024 ended on Nov 15 and the process for refund of security deposit was started on Nov 27 by medical selection committee.

“We found that several students had filed applications from browsing centres or through agents. These agents took cash from parents and gave their bank details for transfer of funds. We don’t know how many parents know if they are eligible,” said director of medical education Dr J Sangumani.

The committee published a notification asking eligible candidates to send bank account details through their registered e-mail ID to [email protected]. At least 12,000 students, who were not allotted MBBS/BDS seats were eligible for refund. “Transfer of funds were successful in most cases. But in 1,500 cases, names of parents or students and bank details did not match. We called them seeking details on mail. Of the 1,500, 979 are yet to send details,” he said.

For postgraduate students, whose admission process ended in December, the state began the refund process in the second week of January. “Nearly 70 per cent of the process is complete. In the remaining 30 per cent , transfers were not done as the details did not tally. We have not published the list of candidates, but we are asking are asking candidates to send us the details through their registered email ID,” said an official in charge of PG admissions.

Officials said refund process is still pending for students from 2021 and 2022 batches. “If the provide account details through the registered email ID we will be able to transfer the funds. We are now asking for adhar or pan details too,” Dr Sangumani said.