Bengaluru: Putting an end to the virtual auctioning of management and NRI quota post graduate seats by private medical colleges in the state, the Union health ministry, Medical Council of India (MCI) and the state government have taken away their authority to directly admit students to PG courses.
In future only the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) will fill all seats under both the management and NRI quotas in these colleges. The move has been long pending as both the colleges and deemed universities allegedly sold their seats to the highest bidder, entirely disregarding merit.The colleges were also accused of tweaking the rules to favour NRI candidates willing to pay more for the seats.
But now under the new arrangement, colleges/ deemed universities can only collect the fee approved by the state government for all seats. Also, the fee will be paid to the KEA, which will transfer the money to the institutes.With the clampdown on the colleges, there is now worry that they may demand a huge increase in the fee structure of government quota students.
“The colleges had agreed to a lower fee for government quota seats as they made a lot of money from the NRI and management quota seats, but now with this avenue closed to them, they could insist on hiking the fee for them,” said an officer of the KEA.Meanwhile, the Examination Authority, which began its document verification process on Saturday, will only consider those who have cleared the National Eligibility -cum- Entrance Test (NEET) for post graduation seats, according to official sources.
No more selling seats to highest bidder
So far, seats under the management and NRI quotas were being auctioned to the highest bidder by colleges / deemed universities. Merit was never taken into consideration. Under the NRI quota, rules were tweaked in favor of those candidates who were ready to fork out the most money. Under the new arrangements, every allocation must be done by KEA, a government body and come under the purview of RTI. This makes it impossible to jump the merit list.
Might lead to big jump in state quota fee
Experts feel the new system might cause problems for state students as these institutions might hike the fee for government quota students. "Presently, fee structures vary according to quota. NRI and management seats brought huge profits to colleges, which is why they allowed lower fees for state quota students. The new arrangements will clamp down on their profits,” said an official from KEA.
