Patna, Aug. 3: Health minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey today announced that admissions to Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) would be made through second round of counselling of Bihar Combined Entrance Competitive Examination (BCECE) as suggested by chief minister Nitish Kumar.

The minister, while announcing this, went back on his own stand of advocating a separate all-India-level entrance examination for the institute.

Choubey was talking to journalists following an IGIMS board of governors’ meeting in which the government’s decision to scrap the proposed entrance test was unanimously passed. The institution will now offer 85 seats to students from the merit list of BCECE, while the rest of the seats will be filled through CBSE All India Pre-Medical Test quota according to Supreme Court guidelines.

The minister, an ex-officio chairman of the board of governors of the institution, however, said he felt sorry for over 10,000 students who had applied for the examination after the institute had advertised for entrance tests and invited applications from medical asp irants from across the country.

“I wish them luck in their future endeavours and my message to them is we feel sorry for the inconvenience as we could not conduct the examination this time. There was very little time left to complete the admission process and we thought we would not be able to complete the admissions on time if we went ahead with the separate examination. The bank drafts, which the aspirants had submitted as registration fee, will be returned to them individually within a week,” Choubey said.

He, however, refuted charges that the controversy surrounding the mode of admission in IGIMS, which was recently given the permission by Medical Council of India — will hamper the reliability or reputation of the institution. “People have to understand it as the teething problems that infants face. It has only been a learning experience for us and we have learnt from our mistake,” said the minister.