Government to enter into pact with SFCs

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state government is likely to sign agreements with both the Kerala Self-Financing Engineering College Managements Association and the Kerala Self- Financing Medical College Managements Association in the next two days.Though both the associations had agreed to give 50 per cent seats to the government with reduced fees, a formal agreement on the same could not be signed for various reasons.Sources said that the Health Department has already prepared the draft agreement to be signed with the medical college managements.However, Dr Sommerwell Memorial CSI Medical College, Karakonam, and one of the members of the association, had announced that they will not be part of the agreement this year following controversies over the collection of capitation fee in the college.The college has also pulled out of the self-financing medical college managements association.Both the engineering and medical colleges under the Inter-Church Council had taken the stand that they would not enter into an agreement with the government as their admission process had already began.Meeting today Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has called the managements under the Inter- Church Council for a meeting on Monday to explore the possibility of whether the vacant seats in the colleges under the council can be handed over to the government.However, the council had not agreed to such a proposal claiming that it had received legal opinion against the handing over of the vacant seats.The Chief Minister has also convened a meeting with self-financing medical college managements on Monday and with self-financing engineering college managements on Monday.As per the agreement reached with Kerala Private Self-financing Engineering College Managements Association, 50 per cent seats under the government quota will be divided .As per the agreement, 50 per cent of the government quota will have last year’s fee of Rs 35,000.The other 50 per cent seats in government quota will have Rs 60,000 as fees.The management seat fee will be same as last year’s, ranging up to a upper limit of Rs 99,000 and a workshop fee of Rs 25,000 and a refundable deposit of Rs 1.50 lakh.The agreement with medical college managements association had also envisaged a break-up in the 50 per cent merit quota seats.As per the agreement, 30 per cent seats in government quota will be community quota seats, 30 per cent seats will be for Socially and Educationally Backward Castes (SEBCs), 30 per cent seats will be general merit quota seats and 10 per cent seats for SC/ST category.Of the 30 per cent community quota seats, 10 per cent seats will go to Below Poverty Line category or poorest of the applicant community quota students.These BPL students will have a fee of Rs 25,000.The rest 20 per cent community quota seats will have a fee of Rs 1.38 lakh.Of the 30 per cent SEBC seats, 10 per cent seats will go to BPL or poorer students from the category with a fee of Rs 25,000.The rest 20 per cent SEBC seats will have a fee of Rs 1.38 lakh.Of the 30 per cent general merit seats, 20 per cent seats are reserved for the BPL category with a fee of Rs 25,000 while the remaining 10 per cent seats will have a fee of Rs 1.38 lakh.The 10 per cent SC/ST seats will have the Justice P A Mohammed committee fees, which will be refunded to the colleges by the government.The community quota is applicable to all colleges and not just colleges run by minority communities.Last year community quota was only for minority colleges.