Medical aspirants exempted from penalty this year for late surrender of engineering seats

Thousands of undergraduate medical seat aspirants in Karnataka holding on to engineering seats will be luckier this time to escape the penalty charged by the government.

Citing the delay in NEET-UG counselling due to an ongoing case in the Supreme Court, higher education department has decided to exempt these students from paying penalty for not surrendering engineering seats even after the last date.

Confirming this to DH, the sources from the higher education department said that an official order will be issued with this regard in a day or two.

“The file regarding this is under process and official order will be issued soon,” said a senior official from the higher education department.

As per the penalty clause introduced by the higher education department, the candidates who block engineering seats and surrender them after the casual vacancy round have to pay six times the course fees as penalty.

During the 2020-21 academic year as many as 168 candidates have paid the penalty and the total penalty collected by Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) was
Rs1.18 crore.

This year the two rounds of seat allotment for undergraduate engineering courses have been completed and the KEA had set December 26 as deadline for surrendering seats. But the candidates cannot give up seats as they have no clarity about medical seats.

“The candidates cannot surrender the engineering seats as the lapse is not from their side this year. The NEET-UG issue is pending with the Supreme Court and we have to consider exempting them from the penalty clause this year,” stated an official.

This decision by the department of higher education has come as a great relief for thousands of candidates who are waiting for the NEET-UG counseling and opted engineering seats as well for the safer side. To avoid blocking engineering seats, the state government has introduced a penalty clause. Under this, the candidates have to surrender seats before the casual vacancy round of the counseling.

Meanwhile, the KEA has also requested the government to conduct a mop-up round after the first round counseling of NEET-UG to avoid going of blocked engineering seats to management pool.

As per the recent announcement by the state higher education department, the last date for admissions to engineering courses has been extended till December 31.

Check out latest DH videos here