Day-one of the seat selection process for medical and dental seats at the CET Cell started on a angry note with students venting ire on Medical Education Minister Dr V S Acharya for the reduced number of seats this year.
As soon the minister entered the CET Cell premises in Malleswaram on Wednesday morning to inaugurate the seat selection process, students sought to know the reason behind the delay in sanctioning of seats in seven private medical colleges and in the three government medical colleges established last year. They pointed out that 650 seats had not been made available in the seat matrix as MCI was yet to give its nod for admission in these 10 colleges.

Later taking to reporters, Dr Acharya said the medical colleges at Mandya, Hassan and Belgaum have good infrastructure and expressed confidence that MCI would give the go ahead for these colleges soon.
He also expressed confidence that the MCI would also approve three more government medical colleges at at Shimoga, Bidar and Raichur.

He said that the seats would be added to the matrix and students would be allowed to select the seats in the casual vacancy round.

State’s nod
The central government should consider giving deemed university status to any institution only after consulting the State, Dr V S Acharya pointed out.

The minister was referring to the deemed university status granted to Devaraj Medical College, Kolar, due to which CET candidates lost 60 seats.

The minister ruled out that medical and engineering seats have been reduced this year. He said, last year there were 2154 medical seats with the CET Cell but this year there were 2,394 seats. “Had Devaraj Medical College not been given the deemed university status, we would have had 60 more seats with us,” said the minister.