The State Government’s move to hold an extended second round of counselling to fill up the 9,906 vacant government and government-quota engineering and architecture seats has not brought any major relief. At the end of the extended round too, 9,227 seats still found no takers. The results of the extended second round, which had a 12-hour option entry window, were declared on Wednesday.
According to a press note from the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA), 56,002 seats have been filled so far. While initially 8,772 seats were available for the extended round, 773 seats were surrendered by students, while 327 were surrendered to the government by managements. Simultaneously, 34 seats were added from new architecture colleges. In the end, 9,906 seats were on offer for the students, out of which only 679 seats were taken.
A major reason being attributed to the failure in filling up more seats despite the extended round is because several students who wished to avail a subsidised government or government-quota seat under the Common Entrance Test (CET) had already taken seats under the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK).
The window to surrender seats back to the consortium is closed. As many as 10,085 engineering and 37 architecture seats have gone vacant even under the COMEDK.
Special round
Now, the government’s hopes of filling the remaining 9,227 seats will rest on the 49,055 students who have passed the II Pre University Course (PUC) supplementary exams, the results for which were announced on Tuesday.
The KEA press release said students, who have passed the II PUC supplementary exams, met with Higher Education Minister R.V. Deshpande on Wednesday, requesting for a counselling round for them. Agreeing to this, the government is now conducting a special round only for students who passed the supplementary exam.
The list of unfilled seats will be hosted on the KEA website on August 3 at 4 p.m. along with the rank list of the candidates who have become eligible after the supplementary exam and have also appeared for the CET.
These students will have to get their original documents verified at the KEA helpline centres on August 4, 9 a.m. onwards.
Option entry will be open from 9 p.m. on the same day till 9 p.m. on August 6. The counselling results will be made available on August 7. The last date for reporting to the college for students allotted seats is August 8.
