BANGALORE: BJP members Tuesday staged a walkout in the Karnataka Assembly expressing dissatisfaction over Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Patil's reply on the "failure" of the government to take steps against seat blocking in private professional institutions.
"The government has failed to address the issue of seat blocking in private colleges. We are dis-satisfied with the reply given by the minister, saying that a flaw in the government's agreement on seat sharing with COMED-K (Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka) and linguistic colleges is coming in the way of taking preventive steps," BJP members Aravind Limbavalli and C T Ravi said.
Patil said private professional colleges were taking advantage of students who have been allotted seats but fail to turn up, and eventually these seats are filled by the management.
"The private college managements are taking advantage of this and are pocketing the seats originally reserved for meritorious students," he said.
Patil, however, blamed the opposition legislators for being a stumbling block to address the problem by way of giving a freash lease of life to the Karnataka Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Fixation of Fee) Act, 2006.
While raising the issue, Limbavali alleged that the government has failed to take steps against seat blocking in private professional institutions.