Hyderabad: Private medical colleges in the state are planning to follow in Karnataka’s footsteps by filling up seats by conducting their own entrance test from the new academic year in July.
They have stepped up efforts in this regard to fill 85 per cent of their total seats, thereby making Eamcet insignificant. The remaining 15 per cent seats under the NRI quota will be filled by individual colleges without any entrance test.
They had even submitted a proposal to this effect to the state government long ago. But with no response from the state government, the private colleges have approached the AP High Court. The HC has directed the state government to spell out its stand on the issue within three weeks.
If the colleges’ proposal is approved, Eamcet will be used to fill up only 2,400 seats in 15 government medical colleges. At present there are, 6,200 seats in 43 medical colleges in state.
In Karnataka, all the private professional colleges have formed a consortium named Comed-K (Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka) and they conduct their own entrance test to fill the seats.
However, in AP, the state government has been conducting Eamcet to fill 50 per cent merit quota seats (category-A) and the other 10 per cent of seats (category-B). The remaining 40 per cent seats under, the management quota are filled up by the colleges.
Private colleges now want abolition of categorisation of seats and fees for merit and management quota as per Supreme Court judgement in T.M.A. Pai and P.A. Inamdar cases. They want uniform fees for all seats. They also want uniform fees to be fixed college-wise based on the expenditure they incur on each student.
The HC had recently directed the government and the Admissions and Fee Regulatory Committee to take a decision in three weeks on the uniform fee structure issue. The court also directed the government to announce with regard to the framing of guidelines on the common entrance test to be conducted by the private medical colleges.
