Coimbatore, Apr 16 (PTI) The Tamil Nadu government has asked the Centre to take steps to fill 24 MBBS seats that are vacant in state-run colleges after four rounds of MBBS counselling, state Medical Education and Health Minister Ma Subramanian said on Saturday. MBBS seats in private and government medical colleges had already been filled and of the All India quota of 812 seats, 24 of them have fallen vacant, Minister Subramanian told reporters on the sidelines of launching various projects from the government hospital here. The health department has sent a letter to the Centre and we have urged officials to fill the seats at the earliest, the minister said. The officials had said that nearly 300 seats were lying vacant across the country under the All India Quota, for which an affidavit had been filed in Supreme Court seeking more time and those seats will be filled at the earliest, he said. Speaking about COVID-19, the health minister said, though the coronavirus variants like XE were reported with one person each in Gujarat and Maharashtra, the Centre had denied it and there are no such cases reported in Tamil Nadu. Earlier, Subramanian interacted with those affected with hemophilia. The minister launched various health schemes worth Rs 87.97 crore in 32 government hospitals including Valparai, Udumalpet and Gobichettipalayam through video-conference. PTI NVM KH HDA HDA