Minority medical colleges to share seats with govt

Seat-sharing up by five per cent compared to previous years

While unaided engineering colleges in the State have refused to toe the line this year, medical colleges seem to have yielded to the government's demands for sharing seats.

During a meeting with the government officials on Wednesday, Karnataka Religious and Linguistic Minority Professional Colleges Association (KRLMPCA) agreed to share 25 percent of their seats with the State government for postgraduate medical courses and 30 percent of the seats for undergraduate courses.

This is five percent more than that for  previous years when the government's share of seats in minority medical institutions was 20 percent for PG medical courses and 25 percent for UG courses.

In addition, the Association of Medical and Dental Colleges of Karnataka wrote to Medical Education minister Sharan Prakash Patil on Wednesday consenting to share 33 percent of seats with the government, according to sources.

This comes at a time when the Medical Education department is under pressure to start the admission process for PG medical courses. The department is hoping to complete the first round of counselling by April 3 and is in a rush to draw up the seat matrix.

Speaking to Deccan Herald, KRLMPCA secretary Shafi Ahmed confirmed that their association has agreed to sign the consensual agreement with the State government for seat sharing.

As for the rest of the medical colleges, according to sources, the managements were under pressure from the government to agree to the demand.

The government, in turn, has offered to grant them 25 percent of seats for NRI quota, which could be used as management quota if the seats in this quota (NRI quota) are not filled. This would be profitable for the colleges as fee for managements seats for top medical courses run up to Rs three crore.

Fee revision likely

Interestingly, the college managements have already submitted fee proposals to the government-constituted fee fixation committee. The government has assured the colleges to fix uniform fees as recommended by this committee. This indicates a likely hike in the fee as the colleges have repeatedly complained that the existing fee structure was putting them out of business.

Nonetheless, the validity of such an agreement, stands uncertain. For, the government had assured to implement the Karnataka Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Determination of Fee) Act, 2006 from the academic year 2015-16. This Act does not make provisions for any government seats in private institutions.

If medical colleges have agreed for consensual agreement, the government would also have to convince the engineering colleges to do the same and keep the 2006 Act under abeyance for yet another year. Medical Education minister Sharan Prakash Patil was not available for comments.