CET counselling: Govt, private professional colleges ink pact

Finally, it happened. Private professional colleges and the government signed the agreement on fee structure and seat sharing at 11am on Thursday, when the first round of Common Entrance Test (CET) counselling got under way.
The pact holds good for admission to under-graduate medical, engineering and dental courses during the academic year 2011-12.

Secretaries of the Higher Education Department and Medical Education Department inked the pact, with Panduranga Shetty and MR Jairam representing the college managements. As per the agreement which was reached after the government accepted all management demands, the colleges that collect ¤30,000 as fee for a government quota seat, can charge ¤1.25 lakh for a management seat. Those who collect ¤35,000 for quota seats, can't charge more than ¤1 lakh. There was no change in the seat sharing ration of 45:55 (45% for government quota).
For medical courses, the seat matrix is 40:60, while the fee is Rs35,000 for government quota seats and Rs3.25 lakh for management seats.

For dental courses, the seat sharing ration is 20:80, 20% being for quota. The fee structure is ¤25,000 for government quota seats and Rs2.30 lakh for management seats.

Meanwhile, the CET counselling started with the medical examination of physically-challenged candidates at the premises of the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA). A committee comprising the KEA executive director and doctors nominated by the government conducted the medical examination. Seat selection for candidates eligible for the physically-challenged quota will be done in two sessions (10.30am and 2pm) on Friday for medical, dental, ISM&H and engineering courses.

About 150 candidates appeared for the examination and of them, 103 were declared eligible and the panel has recommended further examination for four others. As many as 41 medical seats are available to them, while the number of seats is 17 in dental and 900 in engineering.

Government subsidy

The State Department of Higher Education announced a subsidy of ¤5,000 for poor-meritorious candidates who avail seats at Rs35,000. While the government has prescribed two slabs of fees, it is up to the college to choose which fee structure it wants and students have no option here. Most city-based colleges, including some prime institutions, decided to provide government quota seats for Rs30,000 each.

Last year, the government had granted a subsidy of ¤10,000 to those who secured ranks within 20,000 and whose family income was less than Rs2 lakh. This year, that cap has been revised to Rs2.5 lakh and 25,000th rank, but the subsidy has been decreased to Rs5,000.

Supernumerary quota
This year, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has granted permission to all colleges to provide 5% reservation for poor-meritorious students under the supernumerary quota. However, the managements want to fill in those seats through the KEA. That means, meritorious CET students would get 5% more seats. For this, the quota colleges need not get AICTE approval.
Till now, the 100% tuition fee waiver scheme had been overseen by the AICTE which allowed colleges to provide up to 10% extra seats to economically-unprivileged students.

From now, the institutions have to implement the scheme on their own. Till 2010, the institutions had the power to decide whether they have to apply for this scheme or not.

But now, after the change in norms, it has been made mandatory for each technical institute approved by the AICTE to reserve up to 5% of the seats for students from economically-backward sections.