Take ordinance route for NEET exemption: Nirmala Sitharaman

Students from the state aspiring for medical seats can hope for a breather as Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said the Centre will cooperate with Tamil Nadu if it brings an ordinance seeking exemption from NEET for government colleges for one year.

Agreeing to the fact that cracking NEET was tough for rural students, the Minister said that she too was privy to statistics related to it. “The situation in Tamil Nadu is unique. We were told that the proportion of the State board students passing in NEET is drastically low. Those who passed are from urban areas making near zero representation of rural students in medical admissions,” she said.

She suggested that the State can collate the data of rural students’ performance in NEET and its impact on their representation in medical admissions to bring about an ordinance along those lines.

“If they forward such a proposal to the Centre, we would extend our cooperation to exempt the State from NEET for the current academic year,” she observed. “I explained everything to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the state’s position on NEET. I informed him that the contention of Tamil Nadu was not against NEET, but about the rural students, who would otherwise lose an opportunity to secure government medical seats. I told him that this would affect the rural students who would be discriminated in medical admissions

and wrested out of the system. I asked him to consider the State’s request, and he directed us to hold deliberations. It was decided that exemption would be provided for one year if the State came out with an ordinance since we could not legally provide exemption,” the minister explained.

No permanent exemption 

The union minister of State for commerce and industry also pointed out that they will not provide permanent exemption for State from the ambit of NEET. “The State has already implemented NEET in PG admissions, Deemed Universities and Private Medical Colleges,” she said.

“There is no permanent exemption, to my knowledge. State should tweak its curriculum in such a way that even rural students from here are NEET-ready.

Special coaching might be provided to rural students. Once they crack NEET, they would become eligible to apply for medical seats in All India Quota elsewhere in the country,” the minister remarked.