596 seats remain vacant after second round of medical counselling this year

Karnataka Examination Authority is in the process of allocating these seats in the mop-up round of UGNEET-2024

After the second round of seat allotment, a total of 596 medical seats are left vacant this year, due to various reasons including high fees. These include seats that were cancelled owing to allotted seats being rejected by students. In previous years, only between 100 to 150 seats would be left unfilled after the second round allotment.

Of the available seats, seven are under the government quota, 135 under private quota, 453 under management quota, and one under the Non-Resident Indian (NRI) quota.

Fee structure

This year, the government has fixed a fee of ₹65,100 for seats in government colleges. In Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) colleges, this fee is ₹1,10,100. For government quota seats in private colleges, fees range from ₹1,54,321 to ₹6,09,834. The fee for private quota seats in private colleges ranges from ₹8,11,285 to ₹25,15,750. Fees range from ₹26,62,700 to ₹45,15,750 for management and NRI quota seats per annum.

Tarun Kumar from Bengaluru, a medical seat aspirant, said, “During the second round of seat allotment, I was expecting to get a government quota seat in some private college. But I got private quota seat. My family cannot afford it and so I surrendered the seat to KEA.”

Praveen Chandra, a government quota medical aspirant from Bengaluru, flagged the issue of facilities. “I wanted to get a seat in a government college with good facilities. However, the college where I got a seat lacked facilities for clinical practice. So, I cancelled the seats in the second round and decided to participate in the mop-up round.”

Mop-up round begins

Now, Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) is in the process of allocating these 596 seats in the mop-up round of UGNEET-2024. Candidates who are eligible and interested in securing these seats must pay a caution deposit for the medical course fee in advance. It is ₹1 lakh for general category students and ₹50,000 for SC/ST candidates.

To prevent seat blocking and other irregularities in the mop-up round, KEA has made caution deposit mandatory. “The option to pay will be available online or via a downloadable challan from October 5 to October 8. Candidates can then select their options between October 7 and October 14,” Prasanna H., Executive Director of KEA, said.

“If a candidate is allotted a medical seat in the mop-up round, the caution deposit will be adjusted to the fee. However, if the candidate decides to cancel the seat, or if they do not report to the allotted college, the deposit will be forfeited. Such candidates will also be fined according to the regulations and will be disqualified from participating in any medical counselling, including the All India Counselling, for the next year,” he warned.

He further said that candidates who were allotted dental seats through KEA’s UGNEET 2024 process but opt to participate in the mop-up round for medical seats, will not be eligible to select dental seats later. “Similar is the rule for AYUSH courses,” he said.

Published - October 02, 2024 10:41 pm IST