BANGALORE: Hundreds of engineering seats in PES University, a private university which was formerly the PES Institute of Technology (PESIT), are at stake as the State government is yet to take a clear stand on to whom these seats belong.
The PES University Act, 2012, was notified in February last year and a notification according the government’s approval was issued last November.
However, it is learnt that the government issued notices to the university asking it not to conduct its own entrance test. However, the PES Scholastic Aptitude Test (PESSAT) was held from May 3 to 19.
“The contention of the notice was that we have violated certain provisions of the Act that governs the university,” said D Jawahar, pro chancellor, PES University.
“They said that we have affiliated the PESIT with our university, which we have not. Programmes offered by PESIT are under Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU). The government wants us to continue running both PESIT and PES University programmes on the same 25 acre campus and we don’t want to do it,” he told Express.
At present, PESIT in Hosakerehalli has engineering courses affiliated to the VTU. As per Section 4(3) and 6 of the Act, the university is not allowed to affiliate any existing college or institutions with its own management for five years.
Expansion can be done only after five years with prior permission of the state government.
An official from the Department of Higher Education said opinions have been sought from various departments and a final decision has not been taken yet.
PES University has set aside 40 per cent of its seats (432 of 1,080) for admissions through the Common Entrance Test (CET). However, students are unable to select these seats as it has not been included in the seat matrix.
A final decision has to be taken by the Minister for Higher Education R V Deshpande, who is out of the country and is expected to come back on June 18, Jawahar said.
Meanwhile, as of 6 pm on Monday, 42,598 candidates entered a total of 17.26 lakh options in medical, engineering, architecture and other disciplines, the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) said.