TNN

Bangalore, Jun 6: Even as the scandal of capitation fees and seat auctioning in medical colleges in Chennai and Bangalore continues to rage, the recent trend in Karnataka’s medical colleges - which substantially enriches managements’ coffers - is raising eyebrows.

Over the last couple of years, many coveted government quota seats in private medical colleges are falling vacant. More important, these seats are then transferred to the management quota. No prizes for guessing why. Management seats fetch much more money than government seats. No attempt has been made so far to check whether this phenomenon is due to genuine reasons or at the behest of institutions. The issue gains importance given that CET counselling for medical seats will soon commence. In 2008-09, six new medical colleges were approved and the seats from these colleges were offered much before the casual vacancy round. “Last year, no government medical seat had fallen vacant till the completion of casual vacancy round,” a higher education department official said.

According to the information available with The Times of India, nearly 30 government seats in the last two academic years were filled by the management due to various reasons, mainly non-availability of students and students withdrawing in the last round of counselling.