BANGALORE: Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly N. Dharam Singh on Friday criticised the Government for not taking an initiative to open six medical colleges sanctioned during the term of the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) government.

Addressing presspersons here, he said six medical colleges — in Shimoga, Mandya, Hassan, Bidar, Belgaum and Raichur — were sanctioned to provide more medical seats to aspirants. Funds for construction of colleges were approved, he said and expressed his dissatisfaction at the progress of in setting up the colleges. The Government was not keen on opening them in the coming academic year, he alleged.

The legislation on admissions to professional courses had stipulated different criteria for admissions to engineering and medical courses, Mr. Dharam Singh said. While admission to engineering courses would be done on the basis of marks obtained both in the Common Entrance Test (CET) and the second pre-university (PU) examination, only CET marks would be considered for medical and dental courses. The relevance of PU courses would be lost, and injustice would be done to students from rural areas if medical and dental seats were filled on the basis of CET marks alone, he said.

Mr. Dharam Singh urged to the Government to set up a Bangalore Metropolitan Authority for projects in the city. Such authorities had been formed in Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata, he said.

On the Bangalore metro rail project, he said the Government was yet to initiate land acquisition, and expressed doubts about completion of the project on time. There should be no forceful acquisition of land for the project, he added.

He said the Centre had sanctioned Rs. 20 crore to conduct a survey for reclassification of sections of the backward classes. But the State Government wanted to stop the survey, he alleged.

On the issue of transfer of IAS and IPS officials, Mr. Dharam Singh said it would affect the implementation of "Suvarna Karnataka" programmes. However, transfer of officials was the prerogative of the Chief Minister, he added.

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