Since the Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit was delaying giving his assent to the 7.5 PER cent NEET quota bill for government school students, the Tamil Nadu government went ahead and issued a Government Order to ensure the same from this academic year. The Governor had received a lot of flak after stating that he would need 3-4 weeks to give his assent despite 40 days passing since the Bill was passed. With the counselling dates coming soon, the TN government has now decided to issue a GO on its own.
In the order, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palanswami’s government announced that a provision of 7.5 per cent will be set apart on a preferential basis to students from state run government schools who have qualified in NEET for admissions to undergraduate courses such as MBBS, BDS, Siddha, Ayurveda, Unani and Homeopathy. “Courses from the academic year 2020 - 2021 made applicable to the State quota seats in all government medical/dental colleges and to the seats allotted by the state government in self-financing medical/dental colleges and all courses for which NEET has been prescribed as an eligibility criteria,” the order said.
The Order also mentioned the statements of the Chief Minister on the floor of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly in March had said that a special committee under the leadership of a former Justice would be formed to study the reasons for the poor enrollment of government school students in medical colleges and that subsequently, a law would be brought out to ensure better representation. Despite the Bill being passed in September, the assent by the Governor was not given for over 40 days and when DMK leader MK Stalin wrote to Purohit requesting him to hurry up since the counselling dates were approaching, the latter had informed that he would need 3-4 weeks to deliberate. The announcement received a lot of backlash from various political parties, since AIADMK leaders had also urged the Governor to give his assent soon. While DMK cadres went on protest, VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan also wrote to the Vice President demanding the withdrawal of the Governor for delaying the process.
