Students who pick seats in Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK) in the first round of counselling and later surrender them, will have to pay a process fee of Rs. 5,000, and only then will they get a refund.
COMEDK’s chief executive A.S. Srikanth said the consortium had written to the government well in advance stating that they would not postpone their counselling as several students from other States participate in it. He reiterated that a refund would be made only after the processing fee is given.
However, Manoj Bhat, an engineering seat aspirant, said that conducting COMEDK counselling before the allotment of seats under CET was against the interests of students. “The government should have stuck to its schedule and not postponed engineering counselling due to issues in the medical seat counselling. This has put us in a fix now,” he said.
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Students who have obtained the first 3,000 ranks under COMEDK have been called for counselling on Tuesday. Students have 16,000 engineering seats in 121 engineering colleges across the State to choose from. The first round of COMEDK counselling will end on July 13 after which students will be given the option to surrender their seats.
Although the apex court order mandates that the first round of engineering admissions are conducted by June 30, the Karnataka Examinations Authority will be completing the counselling process only by July 7. Medical seat aspirants in 2013 were in a similar situation as the COMEDK counselling was conducted before the CET seat allotment.