Hundreds of students thronged KEA office in Bengaluru Thursday for seat cancellation
All 11,875 medical seats and 2,684 dental seats were allotted in the first round. A total of 478 candidates who had secured seats through the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) or in other states cancelled their KEA-allotted seats. The admission schedule will be announced after the final results are published.
These vacant seats were included in the fresh allotment, Prasanna said.
In a notification, KEA said if candidates want to participate in the third round, they can cancel the seat allotted in the second round by paying the penalty of Rs 5,000 and log in to the third round and participate by paying the registration fee afresh. “We paid Rs 5,000 and cancelled the seat. By 3.30pm, KEA officials met the protesters to address the issue. “We have to spend over Rs 2,000 to reach KEA. Then, we pay an additional Rs 5,000. Around 600 students misused the opportunity and did not join, thus resulting in seat blocking.
Because of server issues, we did not get the OTP. We therefore decided to make cancellation a serious issue,” said H Prasanna, executive director, KEA.
We have to go back by evening bus,” said Gowriamma, a mother from Koppal. We are stuck,” said a father from Bengaluru who had been waiting for around six hours. How is it fair on us?” said a parent.
The issue began as KEA decided to make the cancellation process offline. With this, hundreds of parents and students started streaming in early morning from all parts of the state Thursday. As the crowd began to build up, KEA allowed one batch of students inside, while others continued to wait outside. My son was called in. We haven’t had breakfast or lunch. But we were supposed to get an OTP. We were asked to wait outside and now there is no going in or going back. However, the students continued to be miffed about the fine. However, KEA believes that the offline process was necessary to avoid instances of seat blocking.
“We reached by 6am and have been waiting since then. “Last year, students were allowed to hold on to second round seats and participate in the third round.