BANGALORE: The state government has cancelled admissions in seven pharmacy colleges following complaints from students that the authorities refused to admit them after being allotted Bachelor of Pharmacy seats by the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA).
In a letter to the KEA dated July 10, Department of Health and Family Welfare under-secretary B Kamalamma has asked KEA to cancel the seat matrix in Sri Raghavendra College of Pharmacy, Bangalore; St John’s Pharmacy College, Bangalore; K K E C S College of Pharmacy, Bangalore; Noorie College of Pharmacy, KGF; Basaveshwara College of Pharmacy, Bidar; Priyadarshini College of Pharmacy, Tumkur; and C R College of Pharmacy, Tumkur.
“After being allotted seats for the first-year BPharm course, the students were not only denied admissions, but the colleges told them that they were closed. The students have complained,” the letter stated.
The Health Department has told KEA to cancel the seat matrix in these colleges and bar them from making admissions for 2014-15. There are 74 government quota BPharm seats in these seven colleges.
KKECS, Noorie and Basaveshwara Colleges do not have permission from the Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) to admit students. The colleges that do have PCI approval — Sri Raghavendra College and C R College — did not make admissions last year as well. There is a court litigation over the Diploma in Pharmacy courses at Priyadarshini College, but there is no legal restriction for the BPharm course.
But how did the state government issue a seat matrix for colleges that did not have PCI permission? N Sivasailam, medical education secretary, said: “In the government order containing the seat matrix that we submitted to KEA for the seven colleges, there was an asterisk and a note about them. It could be a case of the person entering the data into the seat matrix missing it.”
Of the candidates who were allotted seats in these seven colleges, KEA executive director Ramegowda said six had opted for choice-1, meaning they had confirmed their allotment with the intent of joining the college. “We will now ask them to exercise choice-3, so that they can be given seats in further seat allotment rounds,” he added.