Thursday, June 9 2005 16:09 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: In a clear surrender to the dictates of the private medical and dental colleges Karnataka Government today (Jun 9, 2005) accepted their demand for sharing seats in the ratio of 50:50 for the 2005-06 academic year.

Bowing to the stubborn stand adopted by private professional college managements who declared that no seat sharing formula which is in short of 50:50 ratio was acceptable to them, the State Cabinet at its meeting in Bangalore, decided to go in for a "compromise" keeping in mind the interest of students, Minister for Information B Shivaram said in Bangalore.

With this the Government set the stage for a smooth counselling process for selection of students for admission in medical and dental colleges by Common Entrance Test (CET) cell from June 14.

The private college managements rejected the Government offer for 55:45 seat sharing quota and threatened to resort to legal battle, if their demand for 50:50 quota in accordance with the Supreme Court's last year (Jun 8, 2005) verdict was not honoured.

Following the acceptance of 50:50 ratio seat sharing, the State would loose about 150 seats in medical courses he said adding that, it would make good the loss in the four new medical colleges it was starting from this year.

The 65:35 ratio seat sharing formula agreed upon for engineering courses last year would prevail for the coming academic, Shivaram said.

The fee structure of the previous year would apply for the coming year for all professional courses, he said.