Pharma Council relaxes criteria for admission

Students who passed class 12 Science this year and aiming to take admission in degree and pharmacy courses have a reason to cheer. Pharmacy Council of India has, from this time, lifted the cap of 45% eligibility marks for general category and 40% for reserved category candidates. This means, students who passed class 12 Science exam with chemistry and physics will be eligible to take admission in degree pharmacy course in state, said member secretary ACPC GP Vadodaria.

This year, PIN distribution will start from May 21 and will go on till June 4. There are 68 colleges offering degree engineering colleges in state. "It is a good news for students as there is no restriction in participating in online admission process. Candidates will get admission if there are seats available based on merit," he said.

Officials said, there were nearly 4000 degree pharmacy seats last year, of which nearly 550 seats remained vacant.

Apart from this, officials at ACPC said AICTE has made provision of tuition fee waiver for students seeking admission in master degree course like MBA and MCA. Students from all sections of society with income less than Rs 8 lakh a year are eligible to avail of this provision. The benefit however is given to meritorious students.

"This year, number of seats in diploma to degree will also go down. Till last year, 20% seats were for students who completed diploma course and got admission in second year of degree course. From this year, this has been reduced to 10%," said Vadodaria.

BArch process in July

Degree architecture admission may commence in July, said ACPC officials. NATA, which has offered ‘best of two score’ facility to students this year, is expected to announce result of second test on July 21. Admission process will commence later.

Diploma colleges don’t want GTU

Diploma colleges affiliated to Gujarat Technological University (GTU) reiterated their demand to bring them out of GTU’s umbrella and shift them under Gujarat State Technical Examination Board at the earliest. Their demand resulted from series of grievances from GTU’s lackadaisical attitude towards the diploma colleges — be it end of semester system in first year, changing academic norms or giving representation to diploma colleges in GTU’s Board of Governors. There are around 90 Self- Finance colleges with 1.5 lakh students in diploma colleges in Gujarat. Members of Association of SFI Diploma Colleges met cabinet minister for education Bhupendrasinh Chudasama and submitted memorandum to shift them under TEB.