Some Engineering colleges in Karnataka offered Engineering seats for half the fee, at the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK) counselling for engineering seats that commenced on Tuesday.

While colleges that have been allowed to charge an annual fee of Rs. 1.21 lakh per year charged as low as Rs. 60,000, colleges that have been permitted to charge Rs. 1.7 lakh per seat/per year offered seats at Rs. 98,500 for streams such as electrical, electronics, mechanical, and computer science.

The steep reduction in fee comes at a time when many engineering colleges in the COMEDK-fold had sought an increase in fee by 10 per cent from the State government this academic year.

SSET’s S.G. Balekundri Institute of Technology, Belagavi, offered mechanical engineering seats at Rs. 1.21 lakh, while streams such as civil and computer science cost Rs. 1 lakh, and electrical and electronics is available for Rs. 70,000.

“With many engineering seats remaining vacant, lesser known colleges are offering seats at a lesser cost to attract students,” a professor of a top engineering college in the city said.

Meanwhile, as students are facing anxious moments as the Common Entrance Test (CET) seat allotment results will be announced on July 1, they chose COMEDK seats that were three times more expensive. As CET results are yet to be announced, students decided to grab the seats to “play safe”. However, of the 3,000 students whose COMEDK counselling was scheduled on Tuesday, only 1,500 attended.

COMEDK’s chief executive A.S. Srikanth said that the most sought-after stream was computer science this year.

Seats surrendered

Meanwhile, 76 engineering colleges have surrendered 7,141 seats from their management quota to the CET pool. Candidates, who have received their mock allotment results, can make changes by June 30.

Date: June 29, 2016

Source: The Hindu

  COMEDK, COMEDK counselling 2016, engineering admissions