JOIN USEngineering aspirants were in for a shock on Sunday as the Karnataka Examinations Authority’s (KEA) online option entry for seat counselling to undergraduate professional courses commenced without the necessary details of the government’s share of seats in deemed universities.
According to the option entry method, students have to enter their preferences for seats online and the KEA will allot seats, as per their CET ranks, based on their choices. Last week, students were given time to practise option entry by entering dummy options online.
The real time option entry for first round of seat counselling began on Sunday (June 15). However, when students looked up the seats displayed, the slots from deemed universities were significantly missing. As per the norms, 40 per cent of the engineering seats in deemed universities is the government’s share. Admissions for these seats are conducted based on the CET ranking. For the rest of the seats, the varsities conduct their own entrance tests.
While Higher Education Department officials were unavailable to provide any information on when the deemed university seat matrix would be handed over to the KEA, examinations authority officials were clueless as to when it would be uploaded for the online option entry. KEA Director Rame Gowda said it would be added as soon as they receive the seat matrix for the same from the government. Students fear that they may have to change their options after the deemed varsity seats are included.
From this year, seats in the PES Institute in Hosakerehalli campus, which are the most sought after, fall under the deemed university category.
Hence, only 40 per cent of the seats here are available through the CET. Students were shocked to find even those missing. The PESIT’s Electronic City campus seats, however, are available for the CET counselling as the institute does not fall under the deemed varsity status.
PES Institutions CEO D Jawahar told Deccan Herald that they have already handed over the deemed varsity seat matrix to the government. “As per the rules, we have to reserve 40 per cent seats for the CET counselling and we have already sent our matrix,” he said. The other deemed universities include Reva University and M S Ramaiah University. Their seats, too, do not figure in the option entry list.