The Hindu : Front Page : Fee reduced for poor, meritorious students

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 14, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Front Page

Front Page

Fee reduced for poor, meritorious students

Staff Reporter

Direct admission to dental, ayurveda, unani and homoeopathy courses

— Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.

CRUCIAL MEETING: Minister for Higher Education Arvind Limbavali at a meeting on CET in Bangalore on Tuesday.

BANGALORE: There is good news for students appearing for the Common Entrance Test (CET) 2009. A new fee structure introduced for poor and meritorious students under the government quota in engineering means that they pay Rs. 10,000 less. At the same time, the overall government quota for engineering courses has come down by five per cent.

Besides, students will be admitted to dental, ayurveda, unani and homoeopathy courses directly based on the marks obtained in second pre-university course if the number of applications is less than the seats available.

This was decided on Tuesday at a meeting of the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) officials and representatives of Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK) here.

As per the decision, the government quota in engineering courses comes down from 55 per cent last year to 50 per cent this year.

Minister for Higher Education Arvind Limbavali told presspersons that “Of the 50 per cent of seats, 25 per cent will be for poor and meritorious students, and the fee for this category will be Rs. 15,000. The fee for the remaining seats will be Rs. 25,000.” The managements of the private institutions had agreed to help the Government provide education to poor and meritorious students, he added. The fee for the managements’ seats for engineering will continue to be Rs. 1.25 lakh. In the minority institutions, 20 per cent of the engineering seats will be allocated to the poor and meritorious students while another 20 per cent will come to the government quota. The remaining seats will go to the managements.

Ramachandra Gowda, Minister for Medical Education, said the fee for the course in medicine would remain at Rs. 42,000 and the fee under management quota would be Rs. 3.25 lakh.

However, the seats under government quota would rise from 40 per cent to 42 per cent. “Last year, 1,817 seats came under the government quota, and with the two per cent increase, more seats are likely to come under the category this year,” he added. The Minister said that the admission to dental, ayurveda, unani and homoeopathy courses would be based on pre-university marks. “The students will have to send in their applications for admission. The seat allocation will be done as per CET norms. We have decided to allot seats based on pre-university marks to attract more students to take up these courses,” he said.

The fees under the Government quota for dental course will be Rs. 32,000 while it will be Rs. 2.30 lakh under the management quota.

Counselling

Mr. Limbavali said that CET 2009 counselling would be held in Gulbarga, Hubli and Bangalore. “We will release the CET brochure in the first week of February. CET coaching for students in rural areas will be held from the next academic year,” he added. About loan interest subsidy, he said that 35,000 applications had been received. “The Government will give subsidy of Rs. 16 crore approximately. This is likely to increase next year,” he said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page