The last day for approval of engineering admissions ended Friday. But the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) has not approved admissions to even a single college. Reason: The State government has not clarified on whether colleges, which charged fees over and above what was prescribed by the government, can be approved or not.
Approvals were scheduled to begin September 2, but the DTE wrote to the Principal Secretary, Higher Education, seeking clarity on the definition of “extra fee” and also whether colleges were permitted to fill vacant Common Entrance Test (CET) seats through management quota. The letter, according to sources, was just sent back by the Principal Secretary. “The only directive we have is to follow rules,” said DTE director H U Talawar.
“From September 2 till Friday, we verified admission documents. We found that there is no uniformity in the extra fee charged by colleges. We have decided to forward all documents to the government on Monday. We want them to take a call on whether admissions should be approved, given the varying amounts of extra fees,” a DTE official said.
If this stalemate continues till examination time, students may not receive their hall tickets as their admissions will not be approved.
“The government should have woken up to the extra fee issue much earlier, and not in May, when the admission process starts,” said M S Govinde Gowda, principal, C Byregowda Institute of Technology, Kolar.
“If the government decides to put slabs for extra fees, we will refund the excess amount. But, one must understand that colleges have commitments to fulfill. We are obliged to pay our faculty salaries as per the 6th Pay Commission,” he said.
KEA directive
The DTE is in no position to approve the admissions made under management quota against vacant CET seats, the official said. “This is because of a Supreme Court deadline to finish all admissions before August 15.
The Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) held a reconciliation meeting on August 24 after which colleges got to know the number of vacancies. Any admissions made beyond this point cannot be approved,” the official said, adding that the government could file an appeal before the SC, condoning the extension of the CET process this year.