Hyderabad: In a repeat of 2015, meritorious medicos may lose out on hundreds of coveted post-graduate medical seats, offered by 28 medical colleges in the two states, this year too.

This follows as Dr NTR University of Health Sciences (NTRUHS) is once again expected to hold the PG Medical Entrance Test (PGMET)-2016 admission counselling in April, despite stiff opposition from medical students, who want it to be held after the counselling sessions end at central universities.

This year, counselling dates for All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jawaharlal Institute Postgraduate Medical Education & Research, and Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research have been fixed for May 8, 12 and 22 respectively.

The result of holding counselling sessions before central varsities will be the loss of precious PG medical seats under the convener quota, many of which will go vacant with most top ranking medicos -- who simultaneously qualify to AIIMS (Delhi), JIPMER (Pondicherry) and PGIMER (Chandigarh) -- likely to quit their local seats and opt for central institutes instead.

"Last year, varsity authorities did nothing when medicos in the two states lost over 200 of the 1,800 plus convener quota seats. These vacancies arose after top ranking medicos left their state PG medical seats to join central institutes," said Dr G Ramesh, now a first year PG medico.

While, following a Right to Information (RTI) revelation about the same, several medicos had knocked on the doors of courts to force NTRUHS to fill these leftover seats, their efforts failed to yield any result. "I wanted to join a PG medical seat in Orthopaedics stream in a government college that was left by a student who joined a central institute. But I could not do so despite going to court for relief as we were too late by then," added Dr Ramesh, who was one of the eight medicos who unsuccessfully fought against medical seats going vacant.