The Congress government on Wednesday issued an order withdrawing the option for college students in Karnataka to study a four-year honors programme from the 2024-25 academic year.
The Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) Executive Director H Prasanna on Sunday appealed to students whose ranks have been withheld or those who have not been awarded KCET ranks not to panic as these students can obtain ranks by entering their II PU marks on the KEA portal, which will be enabled Monday onwards.
Prasanna told reporters that some ranks were not announced for students who entered ‘erroneous unique numbers’ (given in PUC), while submitting KCET applications.
“They will be allowed to correct this error, benefiting about 3,000 students,” he said.
Prasanna said joint counselling will be held for all professional courses, including medical and engineering after the announcement of NEET results to avoid unnecessary confusion.
He said the counselling dates would be announced in the coming days.
Prasanna said even for students who have taken NEET, it is mandatory to apply to KEA to participate in the state’s counselling as it has been observed that some of the students have not submitted the required application forms.
“We will provide another opportunity for such students to apply after the announcement of NEET results,” he said.
Noting that government quota seats for professional courses will be allotted through KEA only, he asked students not to pay heed to rumours in this regard.
“Some are trying to create confusion that managements of private institutions have been filling seats for donations. But that is far from the truth,” he said and added that seats will be allotted on merit basis through KEA only.
He said all documents, except for the medical inspection of specially-abled candidates, will be verified online.
“Applicants need not go to KEA for document verification. The respective BEOs have been verifying the documents (study certificate, Kannada medium study certificate, rural study certificate, religious minority reservation and linguistic minority reservation) uploaded by applicants. This process will be completed by Monday,” he said.
He said the college and course-wise seat matrix will be announced on the KEA website upon receiving it from the government.
Prasanna said the government will soon take a call on fixing fees for each course and a meeting in this regard is already held.