Snags delay 2nd day counselling of CPMT

LUCKNOW: Technical snags delayed the second day of Combined Pre-Medical Test (CPMT) 2010 counselling on Wednesday, giving a tough time to candidates and their parents. Owing to poor connectivity and frequent power failures, Allahabad centre could not submit the result of the first day of counselling. Since the proceedings could not be started due to the compilation of the status of seats from all centres, the second day counselling was delayed by several hours.
"We started the second day in the afternoon.The candidates were irked by the delay that was no fault of theirs," said dean (medicine), CSMMU, Prof JV Singh, also the nodal officer for the CPMT-2010 counselling. He admitted that Allahabad centre was responsible for the delay. "They submitted their status in the morning and it needed some correction. Since the correction key is only with CSMMU or director general medical education, it was done after due permission. Then, only the first day's result was declared," he explained.
Amidst the chaos, over 154 candidates locked their choices at the CSMMU centre. At the state-level, more than 500 candidates locked their choices. On the other hand, officer on special duty (OSD), medical education directorate, KC Rastogi ruled out any chaos in counselling. "We were engaged till 5 in the morning in finalising the same. The Allahabad counselling centre was also finalised. It is true that when things are conducted at such a large scale, some problems are bound to occur. And, issues like poor connectivity and power failures delayed things. But, in the end, everything was settled," he said.
As per official status, after the second day of counselling, only some seats of MBBS, BDS in state medical colleges are left in Saifai and Gorakhpur. Some seats of private dental colleges, besides vacancies in alternative system of medicine as BHMS, BUMS and BAMS, are also up for grab. "Most of the seats are of reserved category under physically handicapped, freedom fighter and ST category. Rest have all been locked by students," informed Prof Singh.
On Thursday, students between 4,000-10,000 have been called for counselling.