mumbai with hundreds of medical superspecialty course seats vacant the medical counselling committee mcc has removed the qualifying mark criterion for aspirants so rockbottom scores or a zero percentile would also be acceptable seats have been going vacant every year the government felt that as a onetime measure in the larger context of things we can even accept students with a zero percentile this will not have any precedence it is being taken up as a test case after all the entrance test was not conducted to eliminate students but merely to grade them said a senior officer from the health ministrywith 748 seats unfilled after 4 rounds of admission this year the mcc took the drastic step any candidates who took the neet superspecialty 2021 exam can participate in the special mopup admission roundwhen admissions began this year two rounds conducted by the mcc got a cold response this led to a special mopup round with the qualifying bar lowered by 15 yet there werent many takers now the second mopup round is open to all aspirants india has about 4500 super specialty medical seats there is more vacancy in the surgical branches than the clinical onescandidates have realised that having a broad speciality gives them a good career and money hence many do not want to spend more time in pursuing a super specialty course said dr pravin shingare former head of the directorate of medical education and research dmer if you look at grant medical college 80 seats in super specialty have been lying vacant for 10 years at gs medical college 40 seats in the last 45 years have been unfilled he added but the trend has extended to the nonsurgical branches too in the past three yearsthe bias in selecting programmes often is dictated by considerations that in the case of a surgical branch a candidate needs to work with a team have an operation theatre but a clinical course allows the doctor to work independently out of a clinicparent representative sudha shenoy said the problem also lies with the long bond that candidates need to serve if they join a government college any candidate who joins a super specialty programme would be at least 30 years old if they have to serve a 10year bond when will they start earning so government hospitals go off most students choice list and when it comes to private and deemed institutes the fee is out of bounds for most explained shenoy