BANGALORE: The Karnataka Government has prepared and finalised a draft to repeal the Karnataka Professional Education Institutions Act, which empowered the State to have a say in the admission process and fee structure of private professional colleges.

The draft, which received final touches on Thursday, will be placed before the Cabinet for approval before being introduced as a Bill in the Legislature. The draft not only sets aside the fee structure for engineering, medical and dental courses, but also seeks to disband the Fee Fixation Committee, which is now headed by the retired High Court Judge H. Rangavittalachar.

Although the Committee had fixed the fees for all professional colleges, the Government and private managements had arrived at a consensus on a three-tier fee fixation. Since both the Fee fixed by the Fee Committee and the consensus agreement could not exist together, it was obvious that the Fee Committee as well as the fee fixed by it would have to go.

The draft will set aside the fee fixed by the Fee Committee for nearly 200 private professional colleges.

In place of the Fee Committee, the draft envisages the constitution of a one-man committee headed by a retired Vice-Chancellor to oversee the implementation of the consensus agreement reached between the Government and the private professional colleges on Thursday. Called the Karnataka Education (Repeal) Act of 2006, the main purpose of its enactment would be to ensure a smooth transition of the new fee structure and seat sharing formula.

The repealed Act is likely to stay in force for at least a year.

Sources told The Hindu that the Act would have to be repealed as the counselling for admission was scheduled to begin on June 26 and the private college managements had wanted the Act to be repealed before the consensus agreement came into existence.

The managements had feared that any delay in repealing the Act would have embroiled them in litigation.

Meanwhile, the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMED-K) had a meeting of its member- institutions on Thursday.

The members were informed in detail about the agreement reached between the private managements and the Government.

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