Karnataka COMEDK entrance test to be merged with CET from next year: Details here

The Karnataka government announced on Wednesday that from next year, the Consortium of Medical Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK) admission test would be combined with the Common Entrance Test (CET) and offered at the national level.

Seat-sharing will remain as it is now, and students' rankings will determine admission eligibility in the combined CET. According to Higher Education Minister CN Ashwath Narayan, the next step is to determine the specifics of how COMEDK and the CET would be combined.

The higher education department also restricted the fee hike in private engineering colleges to 10 per cent for the current academic year as opposed to the 25 per cent demanded by the colleges.


In a meeting at Vikasa Soudha in Bengaluru, Education Minister Narayan and the Karnataka Unaided Private Engineering Colleges Association (KUPECA) officials also decided not to charge any additional fees.

According to Narayan, the organisation initially requested a 25 per cent fee hike because there had been no increase for the preceding two years, from 2020-21, but they eventually settled on a 10 per cent hike.

Students given government seats at private engineering institutes are subject to the tuition fee hike. The representatives of the private colleges gave the minister their word that they would back any legal action the government took against the colleges for charging extra fees.

Additionally, KUPECA representatives pledged that they would voluntarily lend their help to the government in its efforts to take legal action against individuals who would use other ways to collect an additional fee.

What is COMEDK?
COMEDK is a consortium set up by the Karnataka Professional Colleges Foundation to provide a reliable, impartial, and effective admission process for applicants to its member institutions.

16 medical, 24 dental, and roughly 190 engineering colleges come under COMEDK. Since its establishment in 2004–2005, COMEDK has been running the yearly admission exams for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the member institutions. Over the past 15 years, COMEDK has also organised centralised single-window counselling processes. The government-appointed Admission Oversight Committees have praised COMEDK's efforts throughout the years, and the Honourable Supreme Court has cited the COMEDK exam as a model exam.