Students stage protest over seat allotment

BANGALORE: Students staged a protest in front of the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) office in Malleswaram over the decision to allot MTech engineering seats to rank holders in the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) test before allotting seats to the postgraduate common entrance test (PGCET) rank holders.“If all the seats in good colleges are taken by the GATE rank holders, we will not get any seats in some of the best engineering colleges”, said an MTech aspirant waiting to be allotted a seat.The notification issued by the Education Secretariat, Government of Karnataka (No.ED 105 TEC 2005), specifies the procedure for the allocation of seats.The provision in the notification reads - “In each category, seats shall be allotted first to candidates with valid GATE score and seats remaining after allotment to GATE candidates shall be allotted to the candidates on the basis of ranking in the postgraduate common entrance test”.Meanwhile, the PGCET students feared that since GATE candidates are being preferred over them, there will be no seats left, forcing them to take up courses in ‘less reputed’ colleges.“This is according to the Government’s order.The number of PGCET students has increased only in the past two years.Preference for GATE candidates has been the norm,” said the Public Relations Officer at the KEA.He added that universities should fight for the candidates and reverse the provision so that PGCET students are also benefited.“Nobody here understands the rules.There is complete chaos and no information about the specific percentage of seats is available under different categories”, Harish, another MTech aspirant poured out his woes.Frustrated with the long drawn out procedures, parents of the aspiring students said that there needs to be a better system.