Stalemate over fee hike leaves NEET aspirants worried

BENGALURU: Over 65,000 candidates who qualified the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and have registered with the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) continue to be a worried lot as medical colleges have locked horns with the government over fee hike. While medical colleges demand a minimum increase of 30%, the government is trying to keep it at 10%.

With Saturday’s meeting with the colleges being inconclusive, officials from the directorate of medical education (DME) said a final meeting will be held on Monday. Sources in DME hinted that the stalemate is delaying issuance of the seat matrix, after which students will be able to enter their final choices and get seats allotted after the first round of counselling.

V Manjula, additional chief secretary to the government in DME, said, “We will have more interactions with private medical colleges to resolve the issue and sign a consensual agreement. We have set a July 13 deadline to complete the first round of

NEET counselling

and plan to start the process on July 4 as per the calender of events.”

Meanwhile, eight deemed-to-be universities with nine colleges have filled their seats by admitting students through the all-India counselling (held by directorate general of health services) that was completed on June 22.

S Kumar, chancellor of Sr Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research, Kolar, said, “Out of 150 seats for UG medical course, we have already filled 127 through DGHS counselling and students have started reporting to the college. Only 23 NRI seats are yet to be allotted. We wanted to share 50% of our seats with the state government, but there were no confirmatory talks before the counselling started. Also the state government’s fee regulatory panel has nothing to do with deemed-to-be universities. We follow DGHS rules and have our own fee fixation committee.”