With NEET impersonation scam rocking Tamil Nadu, the state government has ordered getting fingerprints of first-year students of government and private colleges as the imprint would help detect with accuracy any fraud or impersonation.

According to the government medical college officials here, the DME sent the circular to the government and private medical colleges separately asking their deans to get the prints of three fingers of the students.

The fingerprints would be used for forensic examination to find out the genuineness of the students and the fingerprints should be captured at the dean's office. The work of scanning the fingerprints and sending them to DME would be completed in five days.

The work began on Tuesday. Fingerprints would help to detect with accuracy any fraud or impersonation, the officials said. The impersonation scam surfaced after the Theni Government Medical College got e-mails alleging one of its students had obtained admission by using a proxy candidate to write the exam.

Then the dean of the institution filed a complaint with the police. During a preliminary inquiry into the case, it was revealed that lakhs of rupees reportedly changed hands to help aspirants join MBBS through illegal means. Police had already arrested eight people, including a student Udit Surya, in the case.