Want NEET UG but not from this year: Centre in Parliament

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 11

In a fresh twist to the ongoing NEET UG exam issue, the Centre said in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday that while it was in favour of a general common entrance exam for medical undergraduate admissions, it did not want the exam held from this year.

Responding to members' request to defer the exam by a year, Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs M Venkaiah Naidu said: "The Government has nothing to do with the decision to hold NEET from this year. This is a court directive. But it's true that we can't expect students to switch to a new system. We are for common entrance exam but not from this year. We'll again approach the court for this through Attorney General".

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Central government's changed stance in Parliament came after the Supreme Court has directed CBSE to hold NEET UG from this year and has also declined the plea of the governments to conduct their own medical entrance test this year. NEET UG is schedule to be held on July 24.

But politicians cutting across party lines demanded on Wednesday that the central government either impress upon the court to understand student's anguish or bring an ordinance to undo Supreme Court orders to hold NEET this year.
"Defer this exam by a year," Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said after Trinamool Congress leader Kakoli Ghosh said students in West Bengal have been preparing for three years for the test and have suddenly been told to take a central exam whose syllabus is 30 pc different from state syllabus. Bengal state medical exams were scheduled on May 17 but can't be held due to Supreme Court orders.

"Please initiate a legislation to do away with the court order and hold common exams in phases so that students are not anguished. Also how can students who have studied always in a regional language suddenly take the test in Hindi or English, " Ghosh said in Zero Hour.

Shiromani Akali Dal's Prem Singh Chandumajra asked the Centre to include Punjabi in the seven vernacular languages in which Centre is asking the Supreme Court to allow conduct of the otherwise bilingual test.

BJD member Tathagat Satpaty also asked the Centre to argue its case clearly in court as lakhs of students remained confused. The Centre will now again ask the Supreme Court to defer the test by year, in the last ditch attempt to postpone a much awaited medical exam reform first notified by the MCI on December 21, 2010.