The year’s biggest clearance sale is under way, and it’s not electronic items on any e-commerce site, but medical seats under the NRI and management quota in private colleges in Karnataka. With Thursday being the last date to complete admissions in accordance with the deadline set by the Medical Council of India, these coveted seats, for which many would shell out between ₹22 lakh and ₹41.98 lakh a year, are now being given at a hefty 40% discount.
Last year, NRI and management quota seats were given for a maximum of ₹1.3 crore for the entire duration of the course (four-and-a-half years). At the start of the 2017–18 admission season, the same seats were priced at a maximum of ₹1.88 crore. However, there have been few takers for them, and 676 of the total 773 seats in this category are remaining vacant even after the mop-up round. Officials believe this is the result of demonetisation. What’s more, this is the first time that management and NRI quota seats were allotted through a common counselling process by the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) based on National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) scores.
Compare this with other category seats: Barring 20 spots, all the affordable seats in government medical colleges and government-quota seats and private seats in private medical colleges that cost ₹16,700, ₹77,000 and ₹6.32 lakh per seat respectively have been snapped up.
As per orders of the Supreme Court, the vacant NRI and management quota seats were handed over to their respective institutions with a list of un-allotted candidates in the order of merit in the ratio of 10 candidates for each vacancy.
M.R. Jayaram, chairman of the Karnataka Professional Colleges Foundation, said college managements were in a hurry to fill these seats by Thursday. “Several medical college seats are going abegging and we were given the seats only late on Tuesday evening. So we have just about two days to ensure that these seats are filled. Despite the discounts, we are certain that all these seats may not be filled,” he said.
Medical seat aspirants and their parents, however, are crying foul over this as they feel that college managements had “fixed deals” prior to the admission process. A parent of a medical seat aspirant who failed to obtain a seat as she did not have a good NEET score said, “We did not pick a seat in a medical college and instead chose an engineering seat as the fees under the other quota was ₹42 lakh a year. The same seats are now available for ₹30 lakh a year. Had we known this earlier, we would have waited for this round.”
Medical Education Department officials said they would inquire into the matter and said that colleges had to first exhaust the merit list given to them before admitting any candidates.
Extended mop-up round
With 20 seats under the government, government quota, and private quota being cancelled, the Karnataka Examinations Authority will conduct an extended mop-up round on Thursday.
Candidates who have not obtained any medical seat can take part in this offline counselling. A notification by the KEA states that counselling will be stopped once the seats are filled and candidates have to pay this fees in the form of demand draft. For further details, candidates may visit the KEA website.
