COMEDK: 537 medical seats snapped up on Day 1

Students from across the country snapped up 537 MBBS seats as the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK) began its counselling here Tuesday. A total of 561 candidates attended the first day of seat selection process.

However, only 313 have confirmed the seats, while 224 sought the provisional allotment option as they wanted to wait till the counselling procedures of other institutions like the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) are over. In a first, it was the COMEDK that kicked off the counselling, ahead of the KEA. If the candidates opt to surrender these seats, they will have to do so between July 11 and 13.

Seat breakup

At the end of Tuesday, 146 MBBS seats out of the 683 remained, of which 33 were general merit category. These, along with the 744 BDS seats, will be available on Wednesday, the second and final day of the first round of counselling for medical and dental seats.

COMEDK chief executive A.S. Srikanth said 19,000 professional course seats were available in 216 colleges — 12 medical, 25 dental, 16 architecture and 163 engineering colleges.

There are 683 medical seats in the COMEDK quota, apart from 744 dental, 17,150 engineering, and 300 architecture seats.

Most parents and students who had arrived at the counselling centre in NMKRV College, Jayanagar, were seen questioning the officials about the timing of the counselling, as they felt the CET counselling should have happened first.

Diana Sajan from Kerala said the counselling for government seats in her State too had not started. Another parent from Dharwad was seen asking if his son could attend the second round of counselling instead of the first, so as to see if the boy could get a seat under CET first.

Referring to the scheduling, Mr. Srikanth said they were bound by the Supreme Court order to complete admissions before July 31. On the State government’s request to postpone the counselling, he said the letter reached COMEDK officials only on July 1 (the letter was sent on Saturday, and Sunday was a holiday) and a reply in the negative had been sent.

Asked if heeding parents’ request to put off the seat surrender dates and the second round of counselling by a few days to accommodate CET counselling, he said COMEDK was “open” to it.