KEA counselling for PG medical seats

This year, counselling for all postgraduate medical and dental seats, including the NRI and management quota, would be conducted by the Karnataka Examin­ations Authorities (KEA).

Earlier, 25% of the seats, a total of 615 in the state that was reserved in all colleges for NRI students, were filled by the institutes.

Medical Education Minister Dr Sharan Prakash Patil told reporters here on Wednesday, “We will soon announce the calendar of events. Even as we conduct the counselling, institutes will have the liberty to fix the fee.”

Patil said that 25% seats in deemed colleges and 30% under ComedK would be reserved for students from the state. Besides, 66% seats in minority institutes would be reserved for Kannada students.

These seats would be filled based on the NEET rankings. Any student who has pursued MBBS in the state is eligible to avail these seats.

Even as the state wished to mandate that the domicile period be extended to seven years for those who wish to avail seats in the category reserved for Karnataka students, a few aspirants approached the apex court in this regard. Patil said, hence anyone residing in Karnataka for five years would be eligible as per the existing norms.

He said that there has been no fee hike for government seats. However, there is a permission to hike the fee for government quota seats in private colleges by not more than 10%. The state would also fix fee for the seats reserved for Karnataka students in the colleges.

Deemed universities have hiked their fee anywhere between 30 to 40% this time around. According to representatives of the deemed universities, the hikes were based on the demand of the courses.

Deemed Universities

In a first, the deemed universities will part with 25% of their postgraduate medical and dental seats which would now be added to the existing government quota seats. With this, an additional 249 medical seats and 88 dental seats would be added to the government quota seat matrix.

An additional 350 MBBS seats would be added this year, according to Patil. He said the number of seats in Mandya, Hassan, Raichur, Belagavi and Bidar government medical colleges would be increased from 100 to 150, while that of KIMS- Hubballi, would be increased from 150 to 200.