Govt bungling puts students in a fix

 The department had included 20 per cent seats of these colleges in the seat matrix, but without actually entering an agreement with their representative, the Karnataka Religious and Linguistic Minority Professional Colleges Association (KRLMPCA). 

For this reason, students who took the seats at the counselling last Sunday are left in the lurch, as the colleges concerned flatly refused admission.

Shubham Agarwal’s rank was 125 in the PG Entrance Test conducted by the RGUHS. He opted for M S (Orthopaedics) at MVJ Medical College, Bangalore. Armed with the allotment letter, he went to the college for completing the admission procedure. But he was in for a shock, for the college refused to admit him, expressing its “inability” to share any seat with the government as instructed by KRLMPCA. In a letter addressed to Agarwal, the college asked him to revert to the RGUHS for re-allocation of seat in any other institute.

Datar Rujuta Anand, another aspirant, received the same bombshell when she approached the said college to secure admission to M D (Pathology). “It's a bungling of the worst kind. If the government had no agreement with these colleges, why were they included in the counselling,” she asks.

Agarwal says the botch-up has left him with no option. “If I knew this, I could have easily opted for any other college as my rank is good. But now I’ve been left in an embarrassing position for no fault of mine,” he said.

At the counselling, 415 seats were up for grabs out of which more than 30 seats were picked in religious and linguistic minority colleges.

A senior official in the Department of Medical Education accepted the bungling but hoped to solve it by Monday. When pushed by this reporter for a clear answer, the officer said: “We are very positive about the situation.”

Dr S Ramananda Shetty, RGUHS Vice-Chancellor, said the university had no role to play in the matter and it was for the government to take a call.

“It's not our concern. We only conducted the counselling for the government and followed by the seat matrix given to us,” he told Deccan Herald. According to Dr Shetty, the RGUHS would not question how the matrix is drawn.