Chaos at counselling on day one

Candidates were in for an ordeal with 413 govt quota seats not included

Anxiously waiting for their turn, students and their parents patiently kept looking at the big screen, expecting their name to come up. However, the wait was longer than expected, and candidates in the fourth round, bore the brunt.

The fourth rounders - from rank 1201 to 1500 were asked to report at KEA at 3.15 pm. But even by 5 pm, only those with ranks in the 600s had selected their seats. Many were caught unawares by the omission of six medical colleges.

Divyani Agarwal was hoping and was sure of securing a seat in Dr B R Ambedkar Medical College. “When we came at 12.30 pm, we found that it was not in the listed colleges. We were shocked," said a worried Divyani.

She felt that if other ranks were also included during casual round, it would not be fair on the students who come under the fourth batch. Devendra Agarwal, her father, felt that had he known about these many seats would be excluded from counselling, he would have tried getting admission in the management quota. Ankit Anand, who waited for nearly three and a half hours, said he would take whichever seats were available. "I don't have a choice now that they have taken out 400 seats," he said.

Students in general merit category would be worst affected, felt Rashmi Joshi, whose CET ranking is 1400. She added that even if the seats came in casual round, she would be lucky to get the seat of her choice. Sameis the case with Kushala Reddy who is willing to go anywhere in the State.

Spoilt for choice

While students who did not score high marks fretted about their fate, the toppers had a smooth ride.

Shivraj Patil, who secured MD574 rank in CET and was the first one to select his seat at Hubli centre, said that although he chose KIMS, Hubli, a server glitch caused a big delay.
“We came for counselling at 8.30 am but by the time we left it was about 2 pm,” he said. However, there is no time to celebrate. Shivraj is on his way to Bangalore for a special function arranged by Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) to felicitate toppers.

Siddhartha Baindoor revealed that synchronisation of various centres and felicitation of toppers in centres outside Bangalore ate into the time of students here. Having secured AG397 rank, Siddhartha had to wait for nearly two hours for his turn. He chose Bangalore Medical College.

Chirag Mandal, who got CW 341 rank and was the first to go for counselling, chose Bangalore Medical College.