Leading professional colleges in the city are all set to earn a revenue of over Rs 100 crore through the sale of application forms this year under the management quota. Besides, students and parents are forced to visit around 50 colleges and end up spending nearly Rs 50,000 each just to purchase application forms for engineering, pharmacy, medical, MBA and MCA colleges. Each form is priced from Rs 500 to Rs 2,000. To curb this increasing menace in professional colleges, parents demand the higher education department for issuing a centralised application form and conduct centralised admissions process for all the professional colleges to fill seats under management quota along the lines of convener quota.
Even the managements of some professional colleges are willing to do centralised admissions for management quota seats, if conducted by the state government along the lines of convener quota. This, they say, will ensure transparency and merit in management quota admissions besides curbing irregularities such as sale of seats and denying seats for merit students in some elite colleges.
“As per Supreme Court orders, there should be a ‘single window method’ for admissions to professional colleges. But the state government has been conducting centralised admissions only for 70 per cent convener quota seats and leaving 30 per cent management quota seats to colleges to fill for themselves. This has been imposing heavy financial burden on parents who are forced to purchase applications for as many colleges as possible for management quota seats. This can be avoided, if the government conducts centralised admissions for management quota seats,” said Mr Nimmaturi Ramesh, general secretary of the Consortium of Enginee-ring and Professional Colleges Management Associations.
With no centralised admissions method for management quota seats, the parents are forced to shell out huge amount to purchase application forms before the new academic session every year. The managements are also exploiting the situation to their advantage by pricing the application forms up to Rs 2,000.