Stalin Urges Governor to Send Bill Scrapping NEET to President

Stalin called on Ravi at the Raj Bhavan and requested him to immediately send the Bill to President Kovind so as to get expeditious Presidential assent for it, reports PTI.

The Chief Minister was accompanied by Water Resources Minister Duraimurugan, Health Minister Ma Subramanian and top government officials, an official release said. Referring to the meeting between Ravi and Stalin, a Raj Bhavan release also cited discussions on rain and COVID-19 pandemic related initiatives taken up by the government.

After it assumed power in May this year, the DMK government got the Bill passed in the backdrop of a Salem based medical aspirant's death by suicide. On September 13, 2021, the state Assembly passed the TN Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill, 2021.

Also Read: NEET Exemption: Tamil Nadu Assembly passes bill scrapping MBBS entrance test

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that the Tamil Nadu assembly had passed the bill to exempt the state from the MBBS/BDS entrance test, National Entrance cum Eligibility Test (NEET) and allow admission to medical and dental courses based on Class 12 marks.

NEET was introduced in India as a centralized test for admitting medical students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. However, since its inception, Tamil Nadu has been protesting against the same as after the test was introduced more than a dozen students of underprivileged social background had committed suicide. These students belonging to remote areas were unable to access the necessary resources for clearing the entrance examination.

In June, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin formed a committee headed by retired justice AK Rajan to study the impact of NEET and the other coaching centres and found that NEET favours only the rich and the elite sections, the government said that it has hit the students from both urban and rural areas particularly those whose families earn less than Rs2.5 lakhs a year and who studied in Tamil-medium schools.

The Committee headed by retired Justice Rajan had opined in its report that NEET is against the socially disadvantageous groups, and it promotes 'coaching' culture. Besides, the report also mentioned that NEET examination, which is mainly for repeaters, "reduces confidence of the students and affects their psych." In fact, the Committee has also noted losing faith and confidence as adversely affected the number of enrolments in HSc Science stream by the Tamil Nadu students.

The Bill, referring to recommendations of a high-level committee, led by Justice AK Rajan, a retired judge of the Madras High Court said it is to dispense with the requirement of NEET for admission to UG Medical courses.

The NEET is not a fair or equitable method of admission since it favoured the rich and elite sections of society, according to the Bill's preamble. Social groups mostly affected due to NEET were the students of Tamil medium, having rural background of government schools, those having parental income of less than Rs 2.5 lakh per annum and the socially depressed and disadvantaged groups like the Most Backward Classes, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, as per the statement of objects of the Bill that quoted the findings of the panel.

The Bill is also to protect all vulnerable student communities from being discriminated and bring them to the mainstream of medical and dental education and ensure a robust public health care infrastructure across the state, particularly in the rural areas.

The panel had concluded that if NEET continued for a few more years, the health care system of Tamil Nadu would be very badly affected and there may not be enough doctors for postings in Primary Health Centres or state-run hospitals and that the rural and urban poor may not be able to join the medical courses.

Earlier, while commenting on the matter, a member of the Justice AK Rajan committee had told News 18, "those who get admitted based on NEET are primarily from urban, affluent, educated families. We found that 70% of students when they finish their PG course chose to work with private corporate hospitals. But it was not the case before the introduction of NEET. Earlier, 70% of students chose to work with government hospitals. Therefore I would say NEET is destructive, it shatters the public health system."

Barring the BJP, all other parties in Tamil Nadu are opposed to NEET and this issue became politically sensitive over the years following deaths by suicide of over a dozen medical aspirants.