MBBS & BDS seat matrix today; expect 41% fee hike

Bengaluru: The much-awaited seat matrix of MBBS and BDS of ComedK colleges and government colleges will be posted on the Karnataka Examination Authority website on Friday . With this comes the bad news too: Expect a 27%-41% fee hike, the second this year and for the third straight year.
The government was scheduled to announce the medical and dental seat matrix on June 15, but it instead declared the matrix of engineering and other undergraduate professional courses.
After battling with the Karnataka Professional Col leges' Foundation (KPCF), which comes under the ComedK umbrella, for nearly a month to get medical and dental seats from them for government quota (CET quota), the Karnataka government managed to convince them and signed an agreement with KPCF on Thursday afternoon. This is the se cond agreement this year.
As per the agreement, the private colleges of KPCF will part with 40% of the 1,785 MBBS seats and 35% of the 1,700 BDS seats for CET candidates. The rest of the seats will be reserved for ComedK and NRI candidates. The new fee structure for MBBS through CET has gone up from Rs 55,000 to Rs 70,000 (27%). For ComedK candidates, it has been increased from Rs 4.25 lakh to Rs 5.75 lakh (35%). The BDS fee for CET candidates has been increased from Rs 35,000 to Rs 45,000 (28%) and the ComedK fee hike is from Rs 2.75 lakh to Rs 3.9 lakh (41%). There are 12 medical and 19 dental non-minority colleges under KPCF.
Next challenge
The non-minority colleges (NMCs) and deemed universities (DUs) are not ready to accept the state government's proposal of sharing 25% of their MBBS and BDS seats for the government quota. According to a source in the medical education department, every year the fee structure for ComedK and NMCs is almost similar and only a few deemed universities were sharing the seats for the government quota. “This year, NMCs are demanding higher fees than what was fixed for ComedK colleges,“ said the source.
Medical education minister Sharan Prakash Patil told TOI, “Now, we have a major chunk of medical and dental seats as ComedK signed the consensual agreement. The seat matrix of government medical and dental colleges and of ComedK's colleges will be available on the KEA website on Friday morning. DUs and NMCs have asked for a few more days to reveal their decision.“