BHUBANESWAR: The Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry has approved an increase of 100 more MBBS seats from the current academic session.
With this, the total number of medical seats in the State has gone up to 1,150.
After the approval, Veer Surendra Sai Institute of Medical Science and Research (VIMSAR) at Burla will have 50 more seats, taking the total to 200.
Pandit Raghunath Murmu Medical College and Hospital at Baripada and Saheed Laxman Nayak Medical College and Hospital at Koraput will have 25 more seats each.
Both the medical colleges earlier had 100 MBBS seats each.
The seats in three government medical colleges have been increased to implement the reservation of 10 per cent seats for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) candidates.
Odisha has seven Government medical colleges.
Heath Secretary Dr Pramod Meherda said the State Government had proposed enhancement of seats following the suggestions made by Medical Council of India (MCI) for implementation of the reservation quota in both undergraduate and post-graduate seats.
Accordingly, Odisha had proposed an additional 150 undergraduate seats and 100 post-graduate seats. Approval for enhancement in post-graduate seats has not been received yet.
The State has existing 468 post-graduate seats.
“The medical colleges with 250 seats and those in the first phase renewal of permission stage have not been considered for increase of seats.
"While SCB Medical College and Hospital at Cuttack and MKCG Medical College at Hospital at Berhampur have 250 seats each, the medical colleges at Balasore and Balangir are in first phase renewal stage,” Dr Meherda clarified.
Meanwhile, the online registration for counselling of NEET 2019 rank holders has begun from Thursday. The qualifying candidates can apply for participating in the counselling round by registering at www.ojee.nic.in.The last date for filling and submitting the online applications is June 25.
Document verification sessions will take place at designated nodal centers between June 26 and June 29.
While the state merit list will be published on July 1, choice filling and locking can be done between 11 am on July 1 to 11.59 pm on July 2.