More seats for State students in PG medical, dental courses

Tanu Kulkarni

Bengaluru April 14, 2017 00:00 IST

Additional 363 medical, 173 dental seats from pvt. colleges, deemed universities

Nearly 64% of the total 2,281 postgraduate medical seats and 55.54% of the 929 postgraduate dental seats in the State have been reserved for students from Karnataka.

With the State government implementing the Karnataka Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Determination of Fee) Amendment Act, 2017, which mandates that 30% of the seats under the institutional quota should go to Karnataka students, the number of seats for State students in private colleges and deemed universities has shot up.

With this move, an additional 363 medical seats and 173 dental seats from private colleges and deemed universities are available for Karnataka students. This is in addition to the 1,096 government quota medical and 343 dental seats available for State students. All the seats will be available in the centralised counselling, which will be conducted by the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) currently under way for PG seats for the 2017-2018 academic year.

However, students choosing seats that are part of the institutional quota will get no concession with regard to the fees. They will have to pay the fees based on the consensual agreement signed by colleges with the government in case of private colleges and deemed universities.

Minister for Medical Education Sharan Prakash Patil, at a press conference on Wednesday, had said that this clause was brought into the Act with the advent of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), which came into effect for medical and dental seats for the 2016-2017 admissions. “We did not want students from our State to be at a disadvantage,” he said. However, if the number of Karnataka students is less, then other students can be admitted in the institutional seats.

Postgraduate seat aspirants have welcomed the move and feel it would help them bag seats in medical colleges in the State. Shwetha S., who is aspiring for a PG medical seat, said, “With NEET, the seats in medical and dental colleges in the State are open to students across the country, so this reservation will help in ensuring the interests of students from the State.”