Minister seeks NEET exemption

Concession sought only for quota seats in government and private medical colleges, says Minister

Making a fresh attempt to convince the Centre to grant assent to Tamil Nadu’s Bills to conduct medical admissions on the basis of the Plus Two scores of aspirants, State Health Minister C. Vijayabaskar and Health Secretary J. Radhakrishnan met Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda and Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in New Delhi on Friday.

The meeting came even as the CBSE issued a circular announcing three more NEET centres in the State —Namakkal, Tirunelveli and Vellore — thereby raising apprehensions that Tamil Nadu may not be exempted from admitting medical aspirants solely on the basis of their NEET scores.

Mr. Vijayabaskar told The Hindu over phone, “We explained to Mr. Nadda that the exemption for MD/MS seats under the service quota, which comprises 50%, would ensure rural service sector is not affected. The students get two marks for the service as an incentive. The students could continue to take the NEET but the existing system will not be affected.”

According to him, the State was seeking permanent exemption from NEET in MBBS/BDS courses only for State government quota seats in government and private medical colleges. “We are not asking for exemption for admission to deemed universities and management quota seats in private medical colleges. We explained this to Mr. Nadda,” he said.

“We explained to the Minister that while around 3.70 lakh students appear for the exams under the science stream in the State board, the number of students taking the competitive exam under CBSE is just a tenth of this number,” Mr. Vijayabaskar said.

The Union Health Ministry would give its opinion to the Ministry of Human Resources and Development. Meanwhile, the Law Ministry had been apprised of the bills the State government had passed, the Minister said.

The CBSE said there had been a 41.42% rise in the number of candidates registered for the test this year. A total of 11,35,104 students have registered for the examination as against 8,02,594 last year.