9,782 out of 16,216 COMEDK quota seats have not been filled

About 60% of the seats in engineering colleges under the Consortium of Medical, Engineering, and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK) quota have not been filled for the 2019-20 academic year.

Of the total 16,216 seats available under the COMEDK quota, 9,782 seats have gone vacant.

As the seats under the COMEDK quota cost more than three times that of the government quota seats in private colleges, many college managements slashed the fees.

Some college managements even reduced the fee to be the same charged for the government quota seats.

Many private college managements surrendered seats to the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) in an attempt to ensure that their seats are filled. However, there were very few takers for those too.

The fee fixed by the government for undergraduate engineering seats at private engineering colleges is ₹58,800 through the CET route, and ₹ 2,01,960 under COMEDK. A COMEDK official pointed out that nearly 1,400 engineering seats that were initially picked by candidates were surrendered after round 1.

Although the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is cutting down seats in engineering colleges across the country, 900 new seats were added in Karnataka.

An engineering college principal pointed out that the number of engineering colleges across the country had reached a saturation point.

Acknowledging this, S. Kumar, executive secretary of COMEDK, said that colleges can fill their seats only if they made an attempt to upgrade the infrastructure and improve their faculty members. “Colleges where campus placements are poor will find it very difficult to attract students,” he said.

He said member colleges had been asked to undertake an evaluation by the QS I-GAUGE (that rates universities and colleges) to identify their deficiencies. He said that although COMEDK offered to fund a majority of this cost, only 12 out of 115 colleges had taken up the evaluation.