Wait for pharmacy admissions to get longer in Telangana

While engineering admission counselling has already been conducted, the pharmacy counselling notification for both MPC and BiPC stream candidates is yet to be notified.

Hyderabad: The wait for admissions into pharmacy courses offered by the colleges in the State is set to get longer.

With approvals for State pharmacy colleges still pending with the Pharmacy Council of India, TG EAPCET 2024 admission counselling for BPharmacy and PharmD courses is likely to extend till the last week of October, pushing the start of classes to the first week of November.

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Every year, 50 per cent seats each in the BPharmacy and PharmD courses are allotted for candidates who qualify the TG EAPCET (earlier TS EAMCET) with MPC and BiPC streams in Intermediate. For MPC students, along with engineering, the Pharmacy admission counselling is conducted.

While engineering admission counselling has already been conducted, the pharmacy counselling notification for both MPC and BiPC stream candidates is yet to be notified. “We are learning that the PCI may release a list of approved colleges in September. Following this, the BPharmacy admission counselling schedule will be announced, which will go on till the last week of October, with classes potentially commencing in the first week of November. This timeline is far too late and will affect the academic calendar,” officials said.

The delay has exacerbated the existing issue, as diploma in pharmacy admissions remained stalled, unlike the diploma in engineering programmes, which commenced classwork for the 2024-25 academic year on July 18.

The non-issuance of approval has also affected the PG pharmacy admissions schedule. While the PGECET 2024 counselling notification for admissions to PG engineering, architecture and pharmacy programmes have already been notified, it had to be revised due to the PCI accreditation issue. As per the revised schedule, the last date to register is August 24 and web options will be open on August 27-28 with provisional seat allotment on September 1.

This ongoing uncertainty over the PCI approval is causing significant disruptions for students, who are eagerly waiting to commence a career in pharmacy. Further, delay is expected to push students to enrol for colleges in other States or programmes.

For this academic year, a total of 122 pharmacy colleges have sought approval from the PCI. Last year, there were 119 pharmacy colleges, including three university colleges and 116 private colleges, offering BPharmacy and PharmD courses with 4,505 seat intake.