The Medical Counselling Committee has opened a Special Stray Vacancy Round for MBBS admissions, with about 2,000 seats still unsold after every regular round of NEET UG 2026 counselling closed. The schedule, issued by the Directorate General of Health Services on 30 October, puts registration between 2 and 4 November, allotment on 5 and 6 November, and results on 7 November.
For candidates who watched the last round close without a seat, this is the only route into a medical college this year. It is also narrow: registration shuts at 3 pm on 4 November and choice locking ends at 11 am the next morning.
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Payment opens at 10 am on 2 November and closes at 6 pm on 4 November, while choice filling runs to 5 November. Seats are processed on 5 and 6 November, the list is published on 7 November, and candidates must report between 7 and 16 November, by 5 pm.
The vacancy is concentrated. After the final MCC round, 837 MBBS seats were unfilled, and 824 of them sat across 14 deemed universities in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, according to figures reported from the committee. One seat was left at AIIMS Madurai. State quota seats account for the rest, which is how the estimate has climbed to 2,000.
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The state numbers explain the jump. Karnataka reported 191 vacant MBBS seats after seven rounds, its first shortfall in five years, though every BDS seat there was taken. Tamil Nadu has 16 private college seats empty because allottees did not turn up. Telangana, West Bengal and Rajasthan have each reported more than 100 vacancies.
Where The Vacancies Are
Adding the four reported states to the MCC pool gives about 1,350 seats, which is why 2,000 is an estimate rather than a published count. What survives to November sits in institutions that charge what a qualifying candidate cannot pay. The full schedule is on the Medical Counselling Committee website.
Why Students Are Walking Away
Price, not merit, is the binding constraint. Annual tuition at the 14 deemed universities holding most of the MCC vacancies runs between Rs 23 lakh and Rs 35 lakh, and some private colleges in Karnataka have quoted about Rs 80 lakh for the full four and a half year course, hostel included. No fee cap applies to deemed universities.
The cut-off makes the mismatch sharper. NEET UG 2026 required 213 marks out of 720 for General and EWS candidates and 177 for OBC, SC and ST candidates. Lakhs cleared that bar, yet a seat they earned can still be out of reach at Rs 30 lakh a year. The exam decides who is eligible; the fee decides who enrols.
What States And Courts Are Asking For
States have spent the week looking for a way around the block. Karnataka’s Directorate of Medical Education has asked the National Medical Commission to lower the qualifying cut-off, and colleges and states have pressed for a mop-up round. Tamil Nadu has ruled one out. “The counselling is over. We cannot allot them to other students without fresh counselling,” its selection committee secretary Dr V Lokanayaki told The Times of India.
The courts have been no more generous. The Bombay High Court declined to direct institute-level counselling for vacant MBBS seats, calling the plea premature. An MCC special round reaches only its own pool, while a state quota seat needs a state counselling round or an NMC decision.
Two More Rounds For BDS And Nursing
Dental and nursing aspirants get a longer runway. The fifth round for BDS and B.Sc Nursing runs on the same dates as the MBBS special round, with results on 7 November and reporting until 16 November. A sixth round, open only to those two courses, follows on 17 November, with allotment on 19 November, results on 20 November and reporting until 28 November.
What To Watch
Three things decide how much this round fixes. The allotment list on 7 November shows whether the deemed university seats move at current fees. The NMC’s response to Karnataka settles whether states get a mop-up round of their own. And the 16 November reporting deadline is the real test: seats released by non-joiners this round have no further round to fall back on.
The editorial read is that a second chance is not the same as a solution. A stray round redistributes seats that already exist; it cannot make a Rs 30 lakh annual fee affordable. If the vacancy persists after 7 November, the answer lies in fee regulation for deemed universities and more subsidised seats, not another counselling round.
