BENGALURU: Thousands of graduate medical seat aspirants from Karnataka staged a massive protest outside the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) on Monday condemning the opportunity for non-Karnataka students, who have qualified in NEET, to register for seats in the state.
“When there are 15 per cent seats reserved under the all-India quota, why are the authorities allowing them to register in general along with state students?” asked the candidates.
Around 5,000 candidates and parents were present during the protest. Some of them even tried to force their way into the KEA premises, and police took them into custody.
The protest caused a traffic congestion in and around Malleshwaram and Sankey Road for some time as the protesting candidates blocked the road in front of KEA for half an hour.
KEA officials clarified they were just an authority to conduct the procedure as directed by the state medical education department and they cannot change anything. “If we receive orders from the medical education department, we will exclude non-Karnataka students registration,” said a KEA official.
Institutional quota increased
The institutional quota for seats in private medical colleges has been increased to 50 per cent from 30 per cent. College managements have agreed to this decision.