The Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) on Monday evening released the link for candidates to enter their options for the third round of seat allotment for engineering and other CET courses. Candidates who did not secure a seat in the second round, or those who cancelled their allotted seat after paying the prescribed penalty, can enter fresh options until 6 p.m. on September 3, said KEA Executive Director H. Prasanna.

Candidates who joined a college after securing a seat in the second round but wish to participate in the upgradation process can enter their options from 11 a.m. on September 2 until 6 p.m. on September 3, he added.

Candidates participating in the third round must enter their options afresh, as options entered earlier will not be considered. If a candidate is allotted a seat in the third round, joining the allotted college is mandatory. Failing to do so will attract a penalty amounting to five times the applicable fee. Therefore, candidates should enter only those colleges and courses they genuinely prefer.

Candidates who did not select any choice after the second-round seat allotment will not be eligible to participate in this round. Similarly, candidates who opted for Choice 4 in the second round cannot participate in the third round. However, they may take part in the second-round medical counselling if they had entered options for medical courses.

KEA has published details of the seats remaining after the second round on its website. Candidates have been advised to carefully review the availability of seats before entering their options.

The Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) has written to the government seeking permission to conduct a single examination simultaneously for posts of different departments of the same cadre, conduct document verification based on the model of Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC), and prepare a selection list.

The objective of KEA is to prevent candidates from applying multiple times for posts of the same cadre (mostly Second Division Assistant (SDA), First Division Assistant (FDA) and parallel posts) in different departments, participating in document verification and the same candidates being selected in all departments.

After KPSC, KEA is the main recruitment authority for various government recruitments in the State and has been conducting recruitment examinations. KEA also conducts recruitment examinations as per the request of various departments and hands over the merit list to the department concerned. These departments prepare merit lists in 1:5 ratio and conduct the document verification of the candidates and publish the selection lists.

Going by the Karnataka Civil Services (Direct Recruitment) (General) Rules, 2021, KEA is issuing separate notifications for different posts in various departments with the same educational qualification and same syllabus and conducting different examinations and issuing merit lists to the respective departments.

Due to this, almost the same candidates are toppers in the selection lists of all departments, which verify the documents and publish the selection lists at different times. The same candidates are selected for all the departments in the final list. The candidates choose posts of any one department and give up others. Due to this, departments have to revise and announce the selection lists again, resulting in a waste of time and resources.

On the other hand, KPSC conducts a single examination simultaneously for posts of different departments with the same cadre, same educational qualification and same syllabus. It also verifies documents and announces the final selection list of candidates. However, KEA does not have such powers.

In the State-level recruitment progress review meeting held on June 6, 2026, headed by the Chief Secretary to the government, KEA was instructed to conduct a single examination process simultaneously instead of conducting separate examinations for recruitments of different departments of the same cadre.

In this context, H. Prasanna, executive director of KEA, has written a letter to the secretary, Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR), requesting that KEA be authorised to conduct a single examination simultaneously, verify documents and announce the selection list of candidates based on the KPSC model.

The letter stated that various departments should submit their proposals to KEA as per the rules as soon as they get permission from the Finance Department. KEA, which mainly conducts the CET and seat allocation process for professional courses, would then prepare a provisional schedule to conduct recruitment examinations twice a year. “The authority will consolidate the direct recruitment proposals received from various departments between October and May every year and issue a notification in June. The examination will be conducted in October. The proposals received from June to September will be consolidated and notified in October, and the examination will be conducted in January/February,” read the letter.

Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Prasanna said that the current system, with many duplicated procedures, causes problems for candidates and KEA. “Therefore, we have written to the government to give us KPSC-model power in the recruitment process,” he said.