In a shocker, the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) has dropped around 9,000 engineering and architecture seats in 90 plus engineering colleges, including some top ones, from the final KCET matrix.
The KEA has said that the colleges did not obtain a No-Objection Certificate (NOC) or approval from the government, leading to the exclusion of 9,000 seats.
The seat losers include RV College of Engineering, MS Ramaiah College of Engineering, Dayanand Sagar College of Engineering and BMS College of Engineering.
The Karnataka Unaided Private Engineering Colleges Association (KUPECA) has urged KEA not to start the counseling process till this discrepancy is resolved.
In a letter to the KEA Executive Director, the association stated, "We request you to withdraw the published seat matrix and not to proceed with the counselling until the discrepancy is sorted out. There is a huge discrepancy in the final seat matrix published, compared to the draft seat matrix published earlier."
In a notification, KEA said: "The intake approved by AICTE/Architecture Council of India has been verified for private aided and unaided engineering colleges and only the courses for which approval/NOC has been issued by the state government have been approved."
The notification even mentioned that the dropped seats will be added once the respective colleges submit a copy of the approval order or NOC for their intake.
Speaking to DH, a senior member of the KUPECA said, "It is for the first time we are hearing this kind of regulation. There was no such communication from the government on this. The colleges have approval from both AICTE and VTU."
Officials from the Department of Higher Education confirmed that a direction was issued to KEA to drop seats that had no approval or NOC from the government.
"It is mandatory for colleges to get approval/NOC from the government. All these years, colleges used to get post-facto approval and we used to consider the seats on the basis of Visvesvaraya Technological University's endorsement," an official from the technical education department said.
KEA executive director S Ramya and principal secretary (higher education) S R Umashankar were unavailable for comment.