Sunday, Jun 27, 2010
Government hopeful of getting clearance for 413 more medical seats

• 178 colleges granted ‘conditional approval'
• Counselling process will resume on July 7

Bangalore: It's final. All existing engineering colleges in the State have been granted approval by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). Forty-three new educational institutions, including engineering and pharmacy colleges, in Karnataka and Kerala have been given the green signal.

Barring three educational institutions that have Central Bureau of Investigation cases pending against them or grave complaints filed by their universities, 178 colleges have been granted ‘conditional approval' on the basis of the self-disclosure forms they have submitted, a key AICTE official told The Hindu. The identity of these institutions, however, can only be revealed after the AICTE general body meeting on June 28. These decisions, arrived at during the AICTE Executive Council meeting held in New Delhi on Saturday, will bring relief both to students and the State Government, which is eagerly awaiting the final list of approved colleges and sanction to increase student intake and for new institutions. This list is likely to be uploaded on the AICTE website on the morning of June 29, a key AICTE official said. A total of 552 new institutions have been granted ‘conditional approval' across the country, compared to 1,400 in 2009.

With this, the Government will be able to resume its counselling process for allocation of government and government quota seats in professional colleges as scheduled on July 7.

Meanwhile, at a press conference here on Saturday, Medical Education Minister Ramachandra Gowda said that the Government hoped that pending approvals for 413 medical college seats in the State would come by June-end. Of the 1,780 seats on offer in government colleges under the government quota, 413 were not on offer during the first round of admissions, causing inconvenience to scores of medical college aspirants.

The newly constituted six-member governing body to oversee medical education in the country had cancelled approvals granted by Medical Council of India inspection teams in April.