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Though central counselling for MBBS seats in deemed universities was mandated in response to reports of seats being auctioned to those with the fattest wallets, seats in these universities continue to be an unofficial reserved quota for the rich.
Extremely high fees have ensured that those applying for 8,000 plus MBBS seats in 48 deemed universities face the least competition with just about three candidates vying for each seat in 2018 and less than four per seat in 2019, a TOI analysis of publicly available data shows. In comparison, for seats outside the deemed universities there were nearly 21 applicants per seat in 2018 and nearly 18 per seat in 2019.