Karnataka engineering seats go vacant, minister Sudhakar promises ‘seat blocking’ crackdown
Out of the 90,000 government engineering seats up for grabs, 2,700 are still vacant.
3 min read
Higher Education Minister MC Sudhakar said Friday that seats in computer science, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, electrical and civil engineering streams were left vacant in colleges. (File) As seat allotment for engineering courses is nearing completion, the vacancy of seats in some of Karnataka’s top engineering colleges is raising suspicions of seat blocking.
Higher Education Minister MC Sudhakar said Friday that seats in computer science, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, electrical and civil engineering streams were left vacant in colleges such as RV College of Engineering, MS Ramaiah College of Engineering, Dayanand Sagar College of Engineering and PES University, among others. Out of the 90,000 government engineering seats up for grabs, 2,700 are still vacant.
Speaking to the media at the Karnataka Examination Authority’s office, Sudhakar said that at least 60 seats were vacant in top engineering colleges in the most-sought after streams. “The number of vacancies in high-demand streams has surprised us. We too are suspicious about the seat blocking problem, which has allegedly resulted in these vacancies. However, we cannot verify if the reasons given by the candidates when they cancel or surrender seats are genuine or not. But the department is taking stock and all such students are under observation,” he said.
The minister also said that to avoid such instances, the department was planning to extend the counselling. In addition, the authority will develop an app for the next academic year to prevent students from making errors while registering for the Common Entrance Test process. This would address the students’ and parents’ grievances more effectively and smoothly.
Students who are allotted merit seats and pass through the mop-up round sometimes wish to withdraw their admission and ask for a refund of the admission fees. In such instances, the government converts the vacant merit seats to management-quota seats, in which colleges charge higher fees.
The government wants to plug this loophole. Students giving up the seat will now have to pay a penalty five times the admission fee and will not be able to choose the same stream they had originally chosen.
At the authority’s office, CET candidates raised their grievances about the admission process in engineering and medical courses with the minister. A student complained that she was allotted a nursing seat in a Kundapur college that did not exist. Some students from Shashib College of Engineering, Chikballapur, complained that they were allotted seats in a college that lacked teachers and basic facilities like toilets, labs and other infrastructure.
Sudhakar said that to ensure transparency, detailed information about colleges would be provided during the option entry process.
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