Postgraduate medical seats 'vanish' from KEA matrix

The State government’s seat matrix for postgraduate medical courses has caused much resentment among candidates as some seats in deemed universities are missing from the government seat pool.

According to the agreement with the State government, the deemed universities should reserve 25 per cent of the available seats for the government quota based on the directions issued in 2010.

Even as a case is pending before the High Court on the sharing of seats between the deemed varsities and the government, the former have agreed to reserve 25 per cent seats only among the seats added to their institutions after the 2010 order.

However, the seat matrix declared by the Karnataka Examinations Authority does not reflect the seats added to the institutions after 2010. The missing seats pertain to the most sought-after streams such as surgery, general medicine, paediatrics etc.

For instance, eight seats were identified for MD in General Surgery (as per Medical Council of India website) at JSS Medical College, Mysore. However, none of these seats has made into the KEA matrix. As per the agreement, the university has to give 25 per cent of these seats to the government. 

Further, the seats from Yenepoya University and BLDE university too have not been added. According to officials in the Medical Education department, Yenepoya is now claiming minority status and BLDE university has claimed it had not entered into any agreement with the government.

Tough stance

Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Patil told Deccan Herald: “We intend to get each seat under our share. If there are discrepancies we will definitely look into it.”
However, the candidates have been unable to make use of these seats in spite of the government warning tough action against the institutions.

 Saturday (May 17) was the last day for option entry of seats for first round of counselling for postgraduate medical admissions and on Sunday, the KEA hosted the results of the first round on its portal.

Option entry chaos

Meanwhile, candidates faced a tough time on Saturday during the option entry as several complained that the online option entry was stuck for hours at a stretch. Incharge Director of Medical Education Dr S S Harsoor said that there was no problem with the KEA server.

“According to statistics available with us, 57 per cent of the total option entries were done between 4.30 pm and 9 pm on Saturday. The server was working just fine.” 

On the contrary, candidates said they had to endure hours of panic ahead of the deadline for option entry as they could not add, edit or shuffle any options. Aparna (name changed), a PG seat aspirant said: “Firstly, a majority of us were not aware about the addition of the seats in deemed universities. I was online from 3 pm and it was only at 6 pm that I could see the names of deemed universities. In several other instances people got to know about it 10 minutes ahead of the deadline and had no time to enter those options. All this happened because the website was not functioning in the evening.”

Some students who approached KEA authorities on Sunday to complain about the problem allied that the officials were not serious about their grievance. “We are being tossed around among several officials. Each official we approach asks us to approach another one,” an irate student said.