CET sports-quota seats likely to see a big jump

BENGALURU: Sports-quota seats in professional courses allotted through Common Entrance Test will see a big jump if Karnataka green-lights a proposal being prepared its two departments.
After holding talks in August, the PU Board, Karnataka Examinations Authority and the Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports have reportedly agreed to set aside 5% of the total seats for sports quota.The DYES was keen on 7%.
KEA sources said the final figures were yet to be frozen. A top DYES official said around 5,000 sportspersons were likely to benefit from the move every year.
The wider spectrum will now include students from CBSE, ICSE, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Navodaya and other central boards, who were ignored despite having won medals in competitions conducted by the School Games Federation of India.
Saddled with a restrictive quota - eight for medical and 88 for engineering in the previous season - DYES officials were forced to reject their applications and accommodate those who represented Karnataka in these events.
The departments also decided sports-quota students will study only in urban centres to ensure their sports careers aren't affected. "Rural areas don't have proper infrastructure. There is no meaning in having reservation for sports if we can't help athletes continue their training or practice," a top DYES source told TOI.
The quota percentage is expected to be finalized in the next round of discussions. With medallists from Olympics downwards in the reckoning, the DYES faces the task of grading performance and deciding on the percentage of seats to be allotted to categories specified by KEA.
One critical factor is the classification of sports and games. Having identified priority and non-priority sports for Ekalavya awards, the DYES will diligently apply the same formula to seat matrix too.
Until recently, the DYES went by the Union sports ministry's recognition of national sports federations, and not by the popularity of sports. Hence, players who won medals in football, badminton, hockey and other major sports ended up competing with those who produced medals and participation certificates in tug-of-war, atya patya, karate, tennis-ball cricket, tennikoit and jump rope. As a result, a few from the not-so-popular sports bagged CET seats last year.
"We realized we had to differentiate sports played at the Olympics and Asian Games, and the others. Our exhaustive list of priority and non-priority sports will guide us prepare the seat matrix," the source said.