Ending the anxiety of students aspiring for medical seats under the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK) quota, the consortium will allow attested provisional marks cards during counselling for medical seats that begins on Monday.
The decision comes in the backdrop of a delay by the Department of Pre-University Education (DPUE) in issuing marks cards to students who have passed the II pre-university (PU) exam.
COMEDK Chief Executive A.S. Srikanth said that the consortium was deviating from procedure “in the interest of students from Karnataka”. Students should have the provisional marks cards attested by an officer of the PU Board and those from the districts could get it attested by the divisional officer of board, he said.
DPUE officials said that the board was “in the process” of readying the marks cards. The delay has been attributed to the large number of answer scripts that came in for re-evaluation and re-totalling this time.
Fewer seats?
Meanwhile, students attending counselling will have 132 fewer seats compared to last year, as these seats are yet to get the approval of the Medical Council of India. Mr. Srikanth said that while 60 seats each from the Shridevi Institute of Medical Sciences, Tumakuru, and the BGS Global Institute of Medical Sciences, Bengaluru, were not in the seat matrix, Father Muller Medical College, Mangaluru, had 50 seats fewer this year.
Those students who will be writing the re-exam of the all-India Pre-Medical Test later this month too are expected to participate in the counselling.
HK quota
Students applying for medical seats under the Hyderabad Karnataka (HK) quota in member-colleges of the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK) will have all 42 seats to choose from. Despite the government maintaining that reservation should be followed by the consortium, COMEDK will allot seats under the HK quota only in one college — HKE Society’s M.R. Medical College, Kalaburagi. Of the 60 seats available in the college under COMEDK, 18 will be available as General Merit seats.
‘M.P. test decision won’t hit us’
Officials of the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK) are confident that there will be no major impact on the medical counselling that begins on Monday due to the postponement of the Madhya Pradesh Dental Medical Admission Test (DMAT). The test, scheduled for Sunday, was cancelled as a fallout of the Vyapam scam. Consortium officials said that the number of students coming to the State through COMEDK was not large.
