The second phase of the NEET exam will held as scheduled.
The closely watched drama surrounding the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) came to a close as the union health minister announced the ordinance sanctioning both NEET and state board exams for this year had been signed by the President. With the ordinance passed NEET got "statutory backing", said minister JP Nadda to the press on Tuesday. State governments have been given relief for this one year, giving them the option of accepting NEET, or going ahead with the state exams to determine admission in state quota seats.
Thus, NEET phase 2 will be held on July 24 as scheduled, as will the exams by various state boards.
However the exemption is only for undergraduate admissions. The postgraduate exams, to be held in December 2016, will come under the ambit of NEET entirely.
"The government of India has from the beginning been clear about bringing in NEET," said the minister, refuting charges that the ordinance was to prevent NEET. He added that the health ministry had gone in for a review petition to iron out the obstacles in the test's way.
The biggest takeaway is the clampdown on individual examinations held by private medical colleges by the ordinance. Nadda clarified that no such exams will take place. The state quota seats in private colleges will be filled by which test the state chooses to go ahead with. The remaining, such as the management quota seats, will only be filled by NEET, as dna had reported earlier.
This step is widely seen as a way to crackdown on capitation fees charged by private institutions.
However, it also means, this year students applying to different states, could end up giving both NEET and the state exams depending on various state choices.
For now, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Chandigarh and most recently Bihar, have opted for NEET. West Bengal, Chattisgarh, Assam, Andhra Pradesh have deferred their exams for now.
States such as Tamil Nadu, that admit students based on counselling instead of tests, also get exempted.
Five states, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka and Tripura, have already held their exams, in which nearly 6.5lakh students have appeared. Another 6.25 lakh students also sat for NEET phase 1, on May 1.
Ministry officials involved with NEET estimated that there are 29,000 private seats in the country and 28,000 government sets. They expect two-thirds of the private seats to come under the government via NEET.
The exemption, the minister said, was given as the states could not put forward their views in "the correct perspective" to the Supreme Court. After the apex court passed the order enforcing NEET from 2016, states approached the Centre with their concerns – the ongoing or scheduled state exams, parity in syllabus and the need for exams to be in regional languages. Nadda said that at his meeting with the state health ministers and the all party meeting, both on May 16, there was a consensus to implement NEET in principal and find ways to solve the issues raised by the states.
Thus, from next year, NEET will be held in various languages.
Centre is committed to NEET
Union minister JP Nadda said that the Ordinance addresses the concerns expressed by states and political parties. He said that it was the Centre which had approached the Supreme Court in the matter with the review petition and said it is strongly committed to NEET. Nadda said that only state government seats in government medical colleges and state government seats in private institutions will have exemption for the current year. The Minister said that the management quota seats shall be filled by the respective private colleges, associations of colleges or private universities or deemed universities through the NEET UG-2016 examination in all the states "even for this year. "The necessity of promulgating the Ordinances arose since the Supreme Court is in vacation presently and both Houses of the Parliament had adjourned sine-die by May 13, 2016," he said.
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