Unreturned engg seats: Karnataka Exam Authority collects Rs 55L penalty

The Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) has collected over Rs 55 lakh as penalty from candidates who did not return the engineering seats allotted to them even after the last date.

As per the data available from the KEA, as many as 162 candidates held on to engineering seats allotted at private engineering colleges, even after the last date to surrender them and attracted penalty, which is five times the fee amount.

However, of the 162 candidates, as many as 150 belong to SC/ST community and the rest 12 were from General Merit and Other Backward Communities. "As there is fee refund for SC/ST students, the penalty imposed on them was very less and it not more than Rs 5,000. Other 12 candidates were paid the five times penalty," said an official from KEA.

The fee charged at private engineering colleges is Rs 91,796. "The penalty collected during 2021 was around Rs 1.18 crore from 168 candidates. This year also, the number of students blocked seats was high, but a majority of them surrendered the same before the deadline," the official added.

To avoid seat blocking, the Higher Education department has introduced a penalty clause. This applies to those who surrender seats after a casual vacancy round.