UG Medical Counselling: Despite New Guidelines From Centre, DME Follows MP's State Rules

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Despite the central government’s new guidelines, the Directorate of Medical Education (DME) is conducting UG medical counselling based on the old rules and regulations of the state government, it is learnt. 

This is most evident in the NRI quota. The criteria for admission of students under the NRI quota, as per the central government guidelines 2025, are NRIs, or children of NRIs, or wards of NRIs.

Here, ‘ward’ includes only a ‘minor’ who is under the bona fide guardianship of an NRI. Simply showing that the guardian has looked after the student will not qualify NRI relatives as guardians. 

Meanwhile, the MP gazette notification-2018 defines candidates eligible for the NRI quota as first-degree blood relations or dependents, said DME sources.  “Dependents” gives a wider scope for irregularities in admission to medical colleges, they said. 

On its part, the Centre has specified the first-degree relation of the student, as brother and sister, over and above the mother-father of the first-degree relation, who is an NRI and residing abroad ordinarily. 

It has also been said that the nearest relation who considers such a student as a ward includes siblings of the father, i.e., paternal uncle or aunt; siblings of the mother, i.e., maternal uncle or aunt; both sets of grandparents, and first-degree maternal and paternal cousins.