A year on, cloud over NEET impact

Minority institutions worried over surrendering seats to be filled through govt. counselling

A year after the National-Eligibility-Cum-Entrance Test (NEET) was made mandatory for admission to MBBS, private medical colleges and universities in Tamil Nadu, that have implemented NEET for admissions in 2016, have expressed concerns about the process. Minority institutions, in particular, are especially apprehensive about losing privileges attached to their special status when all seats will have to be allocated through government counselling.

Sunil Chandy, director of Christian Medical College Vellore, has written to alumni informing them that the college would have to surrender all its seats to be filled with government counselling. He goes on to assure them that the institution would take all steps to preserve its autonomy and is expecting “a long drawn and expensive legal battle.”

While government medical colleges in Tamil Nadu sought and got exemption from conducting UG admissions through NEET, private medical institutions had to comply. Last year, CMC filled all the 100 MBBS seats with NEET-qualified candidates, said a senior college authority.

“Undergraduate admissions were carried out exactly in the way that the Supreme Court had said in its verdict. All candidates selected had cleared NEET. We followed the rules to the letter,” he said.

The institution, on receiving applications from NEET-qualified candidates, selected students based on certain criteria such as Church sponsorships. However, what seems to have upset the apple cart is the Centre’s recent notification that all seats would be filled through common counselling.

This year, with the college’s applications for MBBS being put out on its website, the official said that as of now, they have decided to go by last year’s system, and accept applications from students who qualify through NEET. The future of medical admissions for the year is rather murky in Tamil Nadu, with no clarity on what process will be followed. The State is awaiting Presidential sanction for a couple of Bills that were passed in the Assembly, seeking to conduct medical and dental admissions (UG and PG) as it has been doing thus far. In Tamil Nadu, there are 16 self-financing medical colleges that contribute to the State pool of seats; five of them have minority status and provide 350 seats to the government quota, to be filled through single window counselling.

‘Quota norms flouted’

However, there are voices from the other side as well. A former medical education official says institutions have manipulated the minority status with impunity. Institutions claim the status but do not adhere to reservation norms, he adds. While the State follows the reservation system even for seats surrendered by the minority institutions, the mode of admission to management quota seats is not monitored, admit medical education officials. There is no record of whether the State’s reservation norms are followed while filling up management quota seats.

Colleges, however, say they manage to fill the minority quota seats in the management quota easily, but only 3% of the total number of seats go to students from the minority community, on an average. “Since our colleges cater to minority, students from these communities apply in larger numbers and we managed to fulfil the reservation criterion last year even with NEET,” says S. Peter of Madha Medical College, also a minority institution.

“The government should permit admission under the management quota as it is difficult to fill all seats through NEET,” he says, adding, “We want the government to compensate us as it does every student who joins government medical college. It is impossible to charge very low fees with the infrastructure we have created for our students.” Only that would make it viable for private colleges to continue.