₹25 lakh fine for giving up seat in MBBS admissions

₹25 lakh fine for giving up seat in MBBS admissions

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bengaluru:16.03.2021 

The state government has decided to increase the fine from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 25 lakh for MBBS course students who surrender their seats during counselling. This will come into effect from the next academic year.

Medical education minister K Sudhakar on Monday told the council the government is doing this to crack down on the seat blocking scam that crops up every year.

He was replying to a question by ruling BJP member N Ravikumar. Explaining the modus operandi, the minister said private medical college managements get meritorious candidates clear the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and block seats by paying the fee to the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA). They surrender them after the final mopup round of counselling. The surrendered seats are later added to the management quota of private medical colleges which sell them for huge sums of money.

‘Blacklist colleges blocking seats’

There have been reports that several medical colleges collude with high-ranking candidates in this scam so that seats are made available to less deserving candidates.

An expert committee of Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences recently submitted a report to the medical education department recommending fivefold rise in penalty. “We accepted the report and decided to implement it to curb this menace,” the minister said.

Earlier, Ravikumar alleged that private colleges have been indulging in seat blocking and cited raids by CBI on 12 such colleges last year. “Blacklist colleges which indulge in such illegal practices,” he urged.