Unwarranted controversy over medical CET sports marks, says DMER

Nagpur: A group of parents have alleged that the process of awarding sports marks to students who appeared for state’s medical common entrance test (MHT-CET) is flawed. The group has lodged a complaint with Commissioner (State CET Cell) and also approached the Bombay High Court seeking a resolution. Dr Pravin Shingare, chief of Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) said the allegations are baseless and he has already had his first appearance in court in this matter.
“The major issue is that sports marks have helped students to just make it to the medical cutoffs, and this group feels sports certificates are not verified properly by us. Fact is that we do a three-level check of each sports related document submitted by students. First check happens when students submit their documents to us for adding sports marks. The verification is done by my special team, which has been doing this specific work for more than five years. Second check happens at the district level, from where the student comes, so that even local authorities endorse that the document is genuine,” said Dr Shingare. He added that the third level of checking happens at the sports department head office in Pune. “About a month after the admission process is completed, we take the certificates to the sports department and get them verified personally,” said Dr Shingare.
Another issue pointed out by the group was that on an average about 100 students get the benefit of sports marks, whereas this year the number has jumped to 950. For this, Dr Shingare will be presenting his side in court next week when he appears for the second time.
“The matter is now before the honourable court and we will be giving statistics related to the query put forward by the group. All I can say at this point is people should not confuse the number of applicants (for sports marks) each year with the number that actually get the benefit,” said Dr Shingare. He said that from the over 2.5 lakh students who appeared for MHT-CET, only about a thousand would apply for sport marks. “Out of the thousand-odd students, just 100 will actually become beneficiaries,” he said. The actual figures related to number of applicants and final beneficiaries under sports category will be revealed before the court, said Dr Shingare.