KEA may allow ISMH courses aspirants to retain earlier seats

To hold meeting with private colleges to discuss the issue

Unlike during the previous rounds of seat counselling, the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) is likely to allow candidates who have applied for Indian System of Medicine and Homoeopathy (ISMH) and veterinary sciences courses to retain the seats they have secured in previous round, if they are unhappy with the one allotted to them in the ISMH counselling.

Ever since the counselling results were announced on October 21, the KEA office is flooded with requests from parents and students to allow them to retain their existing seats as several of them have not happy with the seats offered to them in the Ayush counselling.

According to the system followed by KEA till now, candidates could not hold seats of previous and existing round at the same time. For instance, if a candidate was allotted a seat in the second round of counselling, the first round seat would automatically stand cancelled.

In case, the candidate did not secure a seat in the second round as per his selected list of college options, he would be allowed to retain the earlier seat. Making an exception this time, the KEA is considering allowing students to retain the existing seats if they do not want to joining the colleges allotted to them in Ayush counselling.

Delayed counselling

Speaking to Deccan Herald, a KEA official said: “As per the rules, students cannot retain seats this way. However, the KEA might make an exception in this case as the fault was on part of the Central government.

If the counselling was conducted along with the rest of the courses, students would have had a clear picture about their options. However, ISMH counselling was delayed by two months.” While the last round of counselling for other courses got over by July end, the ISMH and Veterinary Sciences counselling began on October 11.

Officials in KEA said, this is likely to happen to those who have been allotted seats in the Ayush courses as no candidate wants to give up a veterinary seat. “The moment they finish their third year, they will get jobs. The course is in much demand. We are not expecting any one to give up Veterinary Science seat,” an official said.

Majority of the students have joined engineering courses through the seat they secured in previous round, not willing to pin their hopes on the ISMH counselling alone. Our internals are already over and the semester exams will begin next month. I had got Unani seat in a City college. I wanted an Ayurveda seat. I already have an engineering seat and I would want to continue in the same,” said a student.

Managements meet

The KEA will hold meeting with private college managements on Saturday to discuss the issue. Initially, the KEA proposed that students could retain the seats only if they paid the KEA fees once again. “The problem for KEA is that, if a student has now secured a seat in Ayush, the fee paid in his earlier round will have to be forwarded to the current college.

Hence, to retain the seat in the earlier college, the candidate will have to pay the government’s share of fee  again,” officials said. However, they would not have to pay the extra fees collected by college managements for the second time.

However, several parents are requesting KEA officials to permit them to retain seats without paying the fee again, as most of them are from humble financial background. According to officials in KEA, the problem involves at least a 1,000 students and the government stands to lose a huge amount if they do not collect the fee again. A decision on this is expected either on Saturday or on Monday.