For the first time in over a decade, there will be no ‘State-quota’ seats in private medical colleges. Member colleges of the Karnataka Professional Colleges Foundation (KPCF) have announced that in the absence of a consensual agreement, as many as 700 medical seats which were until now reserved for candidates from the State who qualified in the Common Entrance Test (CET), will fall into a common pool.
This pool will have 85 per cent of the total number of seats i.e., 1,500 medical seats in 12 colleges that admit students through the examination and counselling process of the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK).
This year, however, the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) will replace the COMEDK-Undergraduate Entrance Test (UGET), making it imperative for medical seat aspirants to write NEET– II, if they have not written NEET–I. The counselling, however, will be conducted by the COMEDK as usual, after the announcement of NEET results. The process will be supervised by the admission overseeing committee of the government, they said. Of the 85 per cent seats in these colleges, 42 per cent is meant for students under the reservation categories, members of the KPCF said.
Regarding the fees, COMEDK Chief Executive A.S. Srikanth said, “The fee fixation committee formed by the government will decide. If there has to be a concession for candidates under the reservation, the government will decide. We have no say on this. But all students coming through the NEET route will be paying the same fee.”
Under the consensual agreement that college managements signed with the government, there were different slabs for students admitted under the government, COMEDK and management quotas. Government-quota seats were always highly subsidised.
CET rankings today
KPCF’s announcement has taken the Karnataka government by surprise. It is expected to announce rankings for medical, dental and engineering based on CET results on Saturday. Private colleges have maintained that CET rankings will have no impact on their admissions, which will be based on NEET. “The CET results will be applicable only for government medical colleges,” a member of KPCF said. The State has 16 government medical colleges, including new ones at Dharwad, Kodagu and Chamarajanagar, with 2,200 seats. Regarding KPCF’s stand, Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash R. Patil said, “I have to seek the opinion of the Law Department on the fate of the consensual agreement in the new circumstances.”
Private colleges
have this time
put all their
seats in
NEET basket
