MBBS quota: Guv still awaits legal opinion -

MBBS quota: Guv still awaits legal opinion -

The Times Of India

Julie.Mariappan@timesgroup.com

Chennai:14.10.2020

It is nearly a month since the state assembly unanimously passed a bill carving out 7.5% of available MBBS seats for government school students, and this year’s NEET results are just a couple of days away. Yet governor Banwarilal Purohit is yet to give his assent to the proposal.

Sources told TOI that Purohit is awaiting legal opinion on the matter. “Chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami made specific requests to the governor during his recent meeting. The governor is said to be expecting legal opinion from Delhi to enact the law. The government is positive to get assent by this week,” said a source. Palaniswami, his colleagues, C Ve Shanmugam (law) and K P Anbalagan (higher education) along with officials visited Raj Bhavan on October 5 and briefed him about the Bills. Another key academic initiative of the state government — the bifurcation of the Anna University into two institutions — too is awaiting the governor’s nod.

The state has been pushing for the NEET quota for government school students to ensure about 300 seats to them this year. Under the NEET regime only 0.15% seats in the state quota of 4,043 seats went to government school students, bringing enormous discomfiture to the EPS dispensation. The state cabinet had cleared a proposal in June to provide horizontal reservation following retired high court judge justice Kalaiyarasan commission’s report on the huge disparities between private and government school students gaining access to medicine. Due to cognitive gap created by socio economic factors the committee had concluded that “government school students form a separate class and are in a disadvantageous position as compared to private school students.” It recommended 10% of seats in the medical admission on a preferential basis to students who studied from Class VI to higher secondary in government schools. After sending the proposal to the governor to promulgate ordinance, the state cabinet met in July and tweaked the original proposal. The revised proposal allowed RTE students, who studied in government schools from Class XI onwards also eligible to avail the quota. Attempts to contact governor’s secretary Anandrao Vishnu Patil were futile.