'State has enough engg colleges'

 
“Please do not open any more engineering colleges,” Limbavali said on Monday at the launch of CET 2010 brochure.

Limbavali also reiterated that institutions that already have permission from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to open new colleges will be considered for this year’s CET only if they came before the counselling process begins.

“Colleges these days seek permission first from AICTE and then obtain No Objection Certificates (NOC) from the State government. But this time no college will be admitted into the CET process during counselling,” he said.

The brochures and application forms for CET 2010 will be sent to the respective colleges from March 10. The last date for students to obtain the brochure and application forms for CET 2010 is March 17.

The Minister also revealed that the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) had already received around 1 lakh 35 thousand applications for the CET brochure.

New initiatives

Announcing a series of new initiatives for CET 2010, Limbavali said that students can obtain all details pertaining to this year’s test via SMS. “All dates pertaining to CET, notifications, counselling schedule and results can be obtained by candidates via SMS,” he said.

Limbavali said that this year’s brochure also contained information about the five centres where the CET will take place including directions to the locations. This year’s CET counselling will have two additional centres to make it a total of five centres around the State. Besides Bangalore, Hubli and Gulbarga, Mangalore and Shimoga have also been added as counselling centres this year. 

“This year’s brochure will contain directions to counselling centres and also a model OMR sheet to enable students to practice for CET,” Limbavali said.

He added that students from outside states who had studied in Kannada medium schools from classes 1 to 10 will also be given priority at the counselling.

The minister said that this year’s CET brochure did not contain any information regarding fees for medical seats as the college managements and the government had not yet arrived at an agreement.

“The details of the fee structure and seat sharing for medical seats is in court. After the court takes a decision, the Minister for Medical Education will give out the details. It will not be incorporated into the CET brochure but will be given separately,” Minister Limbavali confirmed.