Karnataka: Private medical colleges likely to share seats under state government quota

Karnataka: A likely breakthrough between the ongoing discussions between the state government and the private medical college managements seems imminent. In simple words, this means that private medical colleges may agree to offer medical seats under the state government quota through the state CET.

Speaking to Express, a senior representative of one of the private medical colleges in the state said, “As the consensual agreement and seat sharing has been existing since several years now, we do not want to break it”.

“We conveyed this to the chairman of the Karnataka Professional Colleges Foundation and requested him to go ahead with the traditional system,where we were signing consensual agreement and giving seats in government quota through CET,” said a management representative of another medical college.

The next round of discussion is expected between the state government and the private medical college managements soon-to reach a conclusion on the matter. There is no final conclusion on the matter yet.

The foundation has implied that since the government has agreed in principal to increase the fee by 10%, the private medical college managements will also take a decision in the interest of the students at large.

A legal opinion has also been sought by the government on the issue asking for validation on the consensus reached between government and private colleges before the Neet verdict from SC was delivered.

However, medical education minister Dr Sharan Prakash Patil said to TOI, “I have not seen the file yet.”

However, higher education and Law minister TB Jayachandra confirmed the opinion has come and they will discuss the matter with the Chief Minister, but refused to reveal what the legal opinion was.

Sources confirmed the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is convening a meeting over medical seat issue on Thursday. Reacting to this, Sharan Prakash said, “Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said that we will have a meeting, but he has not yet confirmed the timings.”