The National Testing Agency will open NEET 2020 registration on Monday, December 2, 2019. Last date to apply for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test will twenty nine days later, on Tuesday, December 31, 2019. Students from all over India will be able to submit their applications in online mode through the official website of NTA NEET.
Even as a little more than two weeks remain for application form to be available, it is yet to be clear whether AIIMS and JIPMER medical entrance exams are being scrapped from this session or not.
On October 5, reports emerged that NEET will be the single entrance exam for all colleges in India, including the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER). Up until last year, these were the only two institutions that held their separate entrance exams. In fact, the exam date for AIIMS 2020 is already up on the official website as May 30 and 31, 2020.
As per chapter IV point 14 (1) of the National Medical Commission Bill “There shall be a uniform National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for admission to the undergraduate and postgraduate super-speciality medical education in all medical institutions which are governed by the provisions of this Act”. Moreover another line in the same point says “Provided that the uniform National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for admission to the undergraduate medical education shall also be applicable to all medical institutions governed under any other law for the time being in force”.
While it is clear that the NMC bill shall ultimately eliminate all other medical entrance exams, exactly when it will take place remains unclear. The bill does not provide any timeline for bringing about the change, even though when it comes to NEXT exam, the national exit test for medical students in colleges, it has given a three year timeline.
NEET 2020 is scheduled to be held on May 3, 2020. Last year 15,19,375 students had registered for it. 92.85% that is 14,10,755 appeared in the exam. 56.5% of the appeared candidates, that is 7,97,042 qualified.
In the AIIMS MBBS entrance exam last year, 3,38,457 candidates had appeared. 3.4% of them, that is 3,38,457 had qualified. Exact statistics are unavailable for JIPMER MBBS entrance exam, however around 1-1.5 lakh students are said to take the test every year. While AIIMS has 1,207 MBBS seats spread across its 15 campuses all over India, JIPMER has 200 seats, with 150 in Puducherry, and 50 in Karaikal.
There are a total of 70,412 MBBS seats in India. These are in 502 medical colleges. Admission to all of them, plus BDS seats, and now AYUSH seats as well will now come under the ambit of NTA NEET.
The government has been taking several steps to enhance medical education, as well as medical facilities outreach in all states of the country. To this end, the cabinet approved in August this year, to add 15,700 more seats and to create 75 new medical colleges in 2021-22.
