Date:08/05/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/05/08/stories/2007050817330100.htm

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CET tomorrow, results on May 25; hi-tech procedure for valuation

Special Correspondent

It will be gone through in one day, says Shankaramurthy

BANGALORE: The Government has taken precautionary steps, including the support of the police, for the smooth conduct of the Common Entrance Test (CET) for professional courses to be held on Wednesday.

Minister for Higher Education D.H. Shankaramurthy and Minister for Medical Education V.S. Acharya, who are overseeing the preparations for the CET, told presspersons here on Monday that discipline would be enforced at all examination centres. Compared with the difficulties encountered by the Government last year, this year's CET and the admission process would be smooth, they said.

Mr. Shankaramurthy said the CET results would be published on May 25 and unlike in other examinations, hi-tech procedures would be adopted in the correction of the answer scripts, their valuation and tabulation.

He said the admission process would start on May 30 and it would be completed ahead of the commencement of admissions by the COMED-K private professional colleges.

Exam centres

Compared to the 186 examination centres last year, this year the test will be conducted in 205 centres. The number of applications received this year is 1.05 lakh compared to last year's 88,721. There are 149 examination centres in Bangalore and the remaining (56) are in major towns and cities. While the CET was held over two days last year, this year it will be gone through in one day.

Mr. Shankaramurthy said nearly 26,000 engineering seats and a slightly less number of medical seats would be available in the Government CET quota. Of the seven new government engineering colleges for which permission had been sought from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), admissions in at least five were likely to be cleared. The new colleges are in Raichur, Bellary, Kushalnagar, K.R. Pet and Ramanagaram, Chamarajanagar and Hassan.

On receipt of approval, the number of seats in the CET pool is expected to increase. A private engineering college of the PES group at Shimoga is also awaiting AICTE approval. At present, there are only two government engineering colleges compared to 127 private ones.

For the CET engineering seats, a student has to pay Rs. 25,000 and the fee for medicine is Rs. 35,000. In the management quota, an engineering student has to pay Rs. 1.25 lakh while a medical student has to pay Rs. 3.15 lakh a year.