It was virtually a last-minute bonanza for the students aspiring to enter medical education, with the Medical Council of India (MCI) and the Union government giving approval for more than 350 seats in the ESIC Medical College in Kalaburagi and two private medical colleges in the State.
While the ESIC Medical College in Kalaburagi has been permitted to admit 100 students this year only if the college fulfilled all the conditions imposed by the MCI within three months.
Two private colleges — Sridevi Medical College and Saptagiri Medical College — which were initially denied permission to admit students, were subsequently allowed 150 and 100 seats respectively, with only a couple of days left for completing the admission process before September 30.
Medical Education Minister Sharanprakash Patil told The Hindu over phone from Bengaluru on Tuesday that the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) sent SMS alerts to all those who qualified for medical seats based on CET ranking and those who had completed the process of verification of documents, about the additional seats available.
“We have been conducting online counselling for the past one week to fill up all the vacant seats, and the decision of the MCI to allow admissions in the ESIC Medical College at Kalaburagi and two private medical colleges have added more seats. These seats were allotted based on the optional entries made by the students, and they have been asked to pay the fees to the respective colleges before the deadline,” Dr. Patil said.
Out of the 350-odd additional seats available now, 223 seats would be under government quota and the remaining would be filled by the managements. All the 100 seats allotted to the ESIC Medical College in Kalaburagi would be filled by the government, with 68 seats going exclusively to students from Hyderabad Karnataka. Apart from the additional seats which were filled through online counselling, 26 seats that were unfulfilled in the ESIC Medical College, Bengaluru, were also filled up.
While the orders for filling up the seats in ESIC Medical College at Kalaburagi and Sridevi Medical College had arrived a couple of days ago, the orders for admitting students in Saptagiri Medical College had been received on Tuesday. Apart from this, 50 additional seats sought by Father Muller Medical College is also likely to be accepted, of which the government would get 12 seats.
