To claim NRI ward quota, fee must be directly paid to KEA, says circular

Bengaluru: To prevent misuse of NRI ward category by professional courses seat aspirants, the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) has issued a circular mandating payment of fees directly to itself from the sponsors account.

Following the instances reported during seat allotment process last year,  where students tried to misuse the quota by submitting sponsorship from people who are not directly related to them.

This year, to prevent it and to help genuine candidates who have blood relative sponsors, the KEA has issued a circular informing students and parents that, “For NRI ward sponsors, it is compulsory to transfer the sponsor amount from the sponsors account directly to the KEA. In case the candidate finds it difficult to transfer the amount immediately, then they can submit a Demand Draft (DD) for the same amount to the KEA and get their admission order. The DD will be returned as soon as the sponsor transfers the amount.”

“There are two categories in NRI. Under NRI, direct children of NRIs can claim the quota. Another is NRI ward where blood relatives can sponsor the admission. Though the fee for NRI and management quota are the same, the parents and students are interested in claiming NRI ward,” said a senior official of the KEA.

The KEA has mooted this after discussing with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) officials and also with other nationalised banks. This year, the KEA has also made it mandatory for NRI ward quota claimers to get the family tree certified from respective tahsildar.

Last year, the KEA had received 500-plus applicants claiming seats under the NRI ward, of that 320 were found eligible and during the second level of verification 14 candidates were found to have submitted fake documents to  claim the quota.