None of the deemed medical universities in the state attended the meeting called by state medical education minister Ramachandra Gowda on Wednesday to discuss if 25% of the seats can be given to the government for admission through the Common Entrance Test (CET).
On February 1, the minister had met representatives of the universities and had requested them to give 25% of their seats to CET. In response, the representatives had said that they would get back to the government on February 6.
On February 6, officials from the medical education department told the universities that the meeting had been postponed to February 10. The meeting, however, did not take place on Wednesday.
“Those institutions that had made a commitment to the government while obtaining the no-objection certificate (NOC) can give seats to CET” RL Jalappa, chairman, Devraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research, said. “But as per University Grants Commission (UGC) and the ministry of human resource development (MHRD) rules, we cannot do that,” he said. “Neither am I in favour of that.”
“Being a deemed university, we have no rights to give seats to the state government because we conduct separate entrance tests,” Prabhakar Kore, chairman of KLE University, said. “The main issue is that UGC rule will not permit us to do so.”
There are eight deemed medical universities in the state, of which three — Manipal, NITTE and Yennepoya — have agreed to give 25% seats for the CET. The government wants others to follow suit.
