A crucial meeting to discuss the fate of 700 seats from government quota in private medical colleges failed to make headway on Monday as the consortium of 12 private colleges refused to bend to the State government’s request to put these seats in the common pool under Common Entrance Test (CET).
Soon after the Union government’s Ordinance last week, the medical colleges, under the umbrella of the Karnataka Professional College Foundation, announced these 700 seats to National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) pool, which would affect medical aspirants from the State.
Sources said that while the State government wanted to convince the private managements to bring these seats within the ambit of CET, the managements refused citing that they will fill the seats after the NEET rankings are announced. However, the government is insisting that these seats should be left with the CET as per the Ordinance.
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Though the issue of fee fixation also cropped up, private managements informed the government that the consensual agreement, which had allowed 10 per cent hike in the fee, did not apply now, sources said. They also informed the government that they would follow the fee fixed by the fee fixation committee, headed by former High Court judge R. Gururajan.
Sources said the government offered the private management the option of conducting counselling for their seats on the premises of the Karnataka Examinations Authority where the CET counselling is also conducted. “The offer was made to make the entire gamut of medical counselling under a single-window system,” sources said, adding that the private managements shot down the proposal.
Minister of State for Medical Education Sharanprakash R. Patil later told presspersons that it was only a preliminary meeting where they discussed issues pertaining to seat- sharing and fee structure. He said no decision was arrived at as representatives of deemed universities were not present at the meeting.
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