Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on September 13 tabled a Bill in the Assembly seeking a permanent exemption for the state from the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to medical courses.
The move comes a day after a 19-year-old student from Salem district, who was supposed to sit for the test, died allegedly by suicide just hours before the exam. He had failed to clear the test twice before. Stalin introduced the Bill and appealed to all to support it for social justice.The Bill seeks to provide for admission to UG courses in medicine, dentistry, Indian medicine, and homeopathy on the basis of marks obtained in the qualifying Class 12 examination.
The government said that the Bill is in line with the recommendations of a high-level committee in order to ensure "social justice, uphold equality and equal opportunity, protect all vulnerable student communities from being discriminated and bring them to the mainstream of medical and dental education and in turn to ensure a robust public health care across the state particularly the rural areas," PTI reported.
AK Rajan, former judge in the Madras High Court, who had submitted his report on the impact of NEET to the state government earlier this year, had told the NDTV, "NEET drives away the poor, only the rich and the affluent garner most seats. When you remove local students from studying MBBS, after becoming doctors affluent people are not going to serve in PHCs in remote areas. They will go abroad to continue their studies and look after their life."
It is noteworthy that Tamil Nadu's anti-NEET struggle has been going on for a while. In fact, abolition of NEET was one of the election promises by the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government. The DMK poll manifesto reads in Tamil, “When Kalaignar was the Chief Minister, the admissions to medical courses in Tamil Nadu were based on the marks obtained by students in their Class 12 Board exams."
The manifesto adds, "The present Union Government has introduced NEET and snatched the opportunities of students in Tamil Nadu to fulfill their medical ambitions. Once DMK comes to power, a law will be passed to abolish NEET in the first Assembly session and steps will be taken to acquire the President's assent for the law.”
