Mop-up counselling: Karnataka Examinations Authority returns 471 vacant medical seats to colleges
Though there was a steep demand for undergraduate medical courses in the state, over 471 seats have been left vacant this year at the end of the mop-up round counselling.
Published: 25th August 2018 03:21 AM | Last Updated: 25th August 2018 03:21 AM | A+A A-
BENGALURU: Though there was a steep demand for undergraduate medical courses in the state, over 471 seats have been left vacant this year at the end of the mop-up round counselling — conducted by the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) — which concluded on Friday. These seats have been given back to respective college managements.
This year, the state government conducted the counselling for medical seats first. Despite the state government prioritising medical seat allotment ahead of the engineering seat allotment, 471 seats will now be handed over to their respective private medical colleges in the state.
Confirming this at the end of the final round, Vinoth Priya, executive director, KEA said, “Over 471 seats are vacant and the same will be handed over to the respective private colleges.”Although there were seats available and thousands of aspirants were waiting to get the seats, they had to return disappointed as the fee was high on Friday.
Medical education minister, D K Shivakumar, who visited KEA on Friday, said, “Out of 65,000 medical seats in the country, only 8,250 seats were given to the state. Out of these, 1,880 seats were allotted to deemed universities under central counselling and KEA had to complete only 6,260 seat allocations to all the 49 medical colleges.”
He said: “In the dental section, we had to allot 7,772 seats for 38 colleges and mop-up rounds will get over by September first week. We will complete the allocation of medical and dental seats by September 15.”
However, many students who were ready to pay Rs 5 lakh to Rs 7 lakh for management seats were disheartened as they got seats at Rs 25 lakh to Rs 45 lakh.
A student, while expressing her disappointment, said, “We were ready to pay Rs 7 lakh, but the seat which I got was more than Rs 20 lakh, and now my one year will go waste as we were unable to pay that amount.”However, the colleges will now sell these seats for up to Rs 1 crore as the government will not have any role in allotment of these seats, say disappointed candidates.
