Deemed varsities to give 25% seats for govt. quota

Staff Reporter

Bengaluru April 13, 2017 00:00 IST

The seats will be available at ‘concessional’ rates

In a move that is likely to benefit meritorious medical and dental seat aspirants in the State, deemed universities will, for the first time, part with 25% of their postgraduate seats and add them to the government quota. With this, 249 medical seats and 88 dental seats will be added to the existing government quota seat matrix.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Patil said deemed universities, after several rounds of meetings, had agreed to part with 25% of their seats, which will now be available at “concessional” rates. These seats will be allotted to candidates through the common counselling conducted by the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA).

According to official sources in the past deemed universities would part with only a percentage of enhanced seats (additional seats granted by the government to those universities to increase student intake). For instance, if a university had 100 seats and then received permission to add 50 seats, only a percentage of the new seats would be ceded to the government. This is the first time they are parting with a percentage of their total seats, sources said.

Meanwhile, all educational institutions may now have to reserve 30% of their seats for Karnataka students. This will be in addition to the government quota seats that are already being given by unaided and minority institutions, Dr. Patil said. He, however, added that there would be no fee concession for this. This will apply to all: private, religious, and linguistic minority institutions.

Confusion over circular
There was some confusion at the press conference on Wednesday, when Mr. Patil initially announced that 25% seats under the NRI and Management quota would be filled by the colleges themselves and not through centralised counselling.

The department later pointed out that there was a fake Medical Council of India circular doing the rounds with this information. Dr. Patil said they would register a police complaint to find out who created this fake circular.