Patna Dental College and Hospital. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Patna, Feb. 27: Admission prospectus is often dubbed as magna carta of admission by universities. Not in Bihar, though.

In 2010, despite inviting applications for admission to bachelor in dental surgery (BDS) course through Bihar Combined Entrance Competitive Examination (BCECE) and later preparing a list of qualifying students, the state government denied students admission for 40 seats of Patna Dental College and Hospital (PDCH).

Reason: PDCH — the only government dental college in the state — is suffering from a serious faculty crunch.

Notwithstanding last year’s fiasco and with no substantial addition to the number of faculty in the college, BCECE board has invited applications for the course yet again even as the applications and prospectus are out for this year’s examinations.

Sources said about 2.5 lakh students take the entrance test every year for admission to medical, engineering and dental courses in the college and are allotted seats according to the merit list. Getting admission for an MBBS or BDS degree is a dream for many, as medicine has always been a conventional career option.

Last year, students, who were on merit list for admission to the dental college felt the slip between the cup and the lip as the state government denied them admission at the last moment. The college has 40 seats for BDS course. Of them, 30 are enrolled through Bihar quota while the rest are allotted through the All India Pre-medical Test. This year, even as examinees are preparing for the tests, uncertainty looms large over the admission process in the college. According to officials, last year a team of Dental Council of India (DCI) visited the college prior to admission in the new academic session and found that the college had inadequate faculty. The DCI team, in a report to the Union government, stated that the college should not be allowed to take fresh admissions. As a result, the Union government directed the state not to take new students, said a BCECE senior official. The college officials said it was a major challenge to provide quality education to about 200 dental students because of faculty shortage. “We have a sanctioned strength of 49 teachers but only 21 are posted at present. We are somehow coping as the number of patients increases every year. There are around 250 patients everyday,” said a faculty member.

On being asked whether the college was ready to take admission this year, principal Dr D.K. Singh said after last year’s fiasco, there were plans to appoint more teachers in the college. “We have already appointed one professor, three readers and two tutors in the college. Prior to the DCI inspection this year, we hope that more faculty members — two professors, five lecturers and five tutors — will be on board. It is eventually DCI’s report that will decide whether fresh admissions can be carried out. But we surely have more teachers now,” Singh said. The students, preparing for the medical test, and their parents are the most anxious lot as they feel the state government is not serious enough.

Sangeeta Srivastava, mother of a medical aspirant, said: “Students study so hard to make it to the medical and dental colleges. If they cannot get seats because of the state government’s failure, it is a shame. Is this the susashan (good governance) the government cannot stop talking about?”