In a student-friendly initiative, the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) has modified the Common Entrance Test (CET)-2024 online counselling application process and facilitated the option to reject an allotted seat online. Now, a candidate can reject a seat online and the fee will be adjusted towards any other course and college the candidate may select, without any time lag.
This comes as a breather to many students who, if they wanted to reject an allotted seat, earlier had to come from their home towns to the KEA head office in Bengaluru. They also had to wait for nearly six months for fee reimbursement.
“To make the counselling process more student-friendly, steps have been taken to provide seat rejection and a fee payment adjustment option in the CET counselling online application from this year. This will prevent students from flocking to the KEA for seat rejection. The fee refund delay will also be avoided,” said S. Ramya, Executive Director, KEA.
The long wait
The earlier system was particularly difficult for rural students, who had to come to the city and make multiple visits to the KEA office. The common complaint from thousands of students was that fees already paid took about six months to be refunded. Owing to this, candidates who rejected an allotted seat struggled to pay the fee for joining another course or college.
Now, in case a candidate rejects an allotted seat in a college or a course online and gets a seat in another college, the fee already paid gets adjusted and the candidate has to pay only the difference amount online.
If the fee of the college and course concerned to which the student joins is less than what was paid earlier, the excess amount will be credited to the student’s bank account after her/his enrollment.