Karnataka - Bangalore   

Meet on fee structure today

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, AUG. 24. Students had to endure another day of anxiety as the proposed talks between the State Government and private professional college managements to finalise the contentious fee structure was postponed to Wednesday.

The Chief Minister, N. Dharam Singh, and his cabinet colleagues are expected to meet the managements' representatives, including the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK) chairman, R.L. Jalappa, on Wednesday.

According to one proposal doing the rounds, the fee could be the average of last year's fee and the fee proposed by the A.B. Murgod fee panel. But the managements have said that they would not accept a reduced fee unless they were allowed to charge a higher fee from a section of the students. But even a NRI quota now looks remote, as most colleges have already filled their management quota seats.

ABVP protest

Demanding that the fees for 50 per cent of the seats in all colleges should be on par with the fees in Government colleges, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) today began a dharna outside the Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell. Protests continued elsewhere, with the All India Students Federation (AISF) activists taking out a procession from Malleswaram circle to the CET Cell.

The ABVP protest started off with Srinivasa, father of Pratibha, who committed suicide over the CET imbroglio, garlanding the portraits of his daughter and two others, Mamatha and Shashikumar, both of who had resorted to suicide over the admissions issue.

Addressing the gathering, Mr. Srinivasa urged the government to reduce the professional college fee without further delay. No student should lose a seat for want of adequate finances, he said.

Minority colleges' reply

The association of linguistic and religious minority colleges wrote a letter to the Venkataraman committee, overseeing professional college admissions, and contended that the entrance test conducted by it on August 17 was fair and transparent. The panel had on Monday ruled that the test was null and void as it did not have prior information and wanted the association to either hold the test afresh or admit students based on the State CET merit list.

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