Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) has begun the fourth round of online counselling, termed the “stray vacancy round”, to fill MBBS and BDS seats left vacant in Punjab’s medical and dental colleges after three rounds of admissions. The university on Tuesday released a provisional merit list of 744 candidates who have applied for the round.According to the vacancy position, 60 seats remain unfilled for the 2026 session, including nine MBBS and 51 BDS seats.Of the nine MBBS vacancies, three are Scheduled Caste (SC) seats — two in the open quota and one in the management quota at Adesh Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Bathinda.Christian Medical College, Ludhiana, has one vacant minority-quota seat, while Guru Gobind Singh Medical College, Faridkot, has one NRI seat in the government quota.Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences, Jalandhar, has one vacant seat in the persons with disabilities (PWD) category. RIMT Medical College, Mandi Gobindgarh, has one management-quota seat reserved for migrants from Jammu and Kashmir displaced by terrorist violence.Sri Guru Ram Das Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Amritsar, has two open-quota vacancies — one for a person with a disability and the other for a ward of armed forces personnel.The vacancies are more pronounced in dental colleges. Desh Bhagat Dental College and Hospital and RIMT Dental College, both in Mandi Gobindgarh, have 13 vacant SC management-quota seats each. Desh Bhagat has three additional vacancies under the PWD management quota, while RIMT has three in the same category.RIMT also has one seat each reserved for wards of Punjab Police and paramilitary personnel killed in action, and for children or grandchildren of freedom fighters.The remaining vacancies are spread across Adesh Institute of Dental Sciences, Bathinda; Baba Jaswant Singh Dental College, Ludhiana; Dasmesh Institute, Faridkot; Genesis Institute, Ferozepur; Gian Sagar Dental College, Banur; Government Dental Colleges at Amritsar and Patiala; National Dental College, Dera Bassi; Rayat-Bahra Dental College, Mohali; and Shaheed Kartar Singh Sarabha Dental College, Ludhiana.Of the total 60 vacant seats, 36 fall under the SC category and 13 are reserved for persons with disabilities. The vacancies are thus concentrated in reserved categories for which an adequate number of eligible candidates have not been available in earlier rounds.Although 744 candidates are in the fray for 60 seats, the effective competition will depend on the candidates’ eligibility for the specific categories and quotas under which the seats remain vacant.