Legal decks cleared for pact on admissions and fee structure

The Legislative Council on Monday adopted the Karnataka Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Fixation of Fee) (Special Provisions) Bill 2013 to provide for recognition of the consensual agreement proposed to be entered into between the State government and private unaided professional educational institutions for the academic year 2013-14 with respect to admission and fee structure. With this, the legal decks have been cleared for the proposed consensual agreement as the Bill has already been adopted in the Assembly.

The Bill, that seeks to keep the Karnataka Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Determination of Fee) Act 2006 in abeyance for the academic year 2013-14 to provide for the operation of the proposed consensual agreement, was adopted by a voice vote.

Piloting the Bill, Higher Education Minister R.V. Deshpande noted that the need for consensual agreement had arisen as the time was running out for admissions. Such consensual agreements had been entered into from 2006-07 to 2012-13.

He said the Karnataka Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Determination of Fee) Act 2006 would be implemented from the next academic year.

Referring to the allegations by the Opposition members that certain private professional colleges were insisting that the Dalit students should pay up the fees though the government was supposed to pay their fees, he said the government would take action against such colleges if they did not return the fee amount to students.

Intervening in the discussion, Minister of State for Medical Education Sharanprakash Patil confessed that he was not satisfied with the consensual agreement system, but forced to implement it owing to paucity of time, blaming the earlier BJP dispensation for the situation.

The Minister particularly expressed displeasure over medical seats from important streams not being given under the government quota in the consensual pact. Alleging that the erstwhile BJP government had just accepted the seats from whatever the streams were offered by the private educational institutions, he said this time he had slightly improved the system.

But I am not fully satisfied, he said and assured the House of further improving the seat-sharing system in the next academic year.

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Legal decks cleared for pact on admissions and fee structure