As per the news reports, the Tamil Nadu MBBS / BDS Admission will begin from July 17, 2017. The online registration for it will start from June 27, 2017, announced the Health Secretary J. Radhakrishnan.
So far, the counselling and the procedure seems upright. However, there is an inescapable catch. The state has decided that the counselling to fill 85% seats in the state will only be held for the state board students. Hence, the students of Tamil Nadu who did pass class 12th from CBSE, ICSE or any other board cannot participate in the state counselling. They will only be granted admission through the MCC’s NEET 2017 counselling for the 15% All India Quota seats.
“Medical admissions in the state will be completely based on NEET rank. However, after surrendering 15% for all-India quota, we want to reserve 85% of the remaining seats for state board students,” stated by a senior official.
The baffling decision was announced by the Health Minister C. Vijayabaskar, in the Assembly meeting. He made it clear that the admission will be granted on the basis of NEET 2017 score but only the students of state board will be granted admission. Now, as per it, the following is the seat distribution matrix for the government seats.
The state has taken the decision to protect the interests of the state board candidates. Out of 3.46 lakh students in the state, with Biology as a core subject, only 4675 belonging to CBSE stream. Among the total, only 80000 appeared for NEET 2017. Hence, the majority of TN candidates were not familiar with CBSE syllabus that was the syllabus for NEET as well and supposedly did not got a fair chance to crack the exam.
“Of the 80,000 TN students who wrote NEET, at least 90% were from the state board. However, 50% of the questions asked in NEET were out-of-state syllabus for the state board students,” said an official.
On the flip side, MK Stalin the president of DMK has also appealed to the President of India to pass the NEET bill. The bill basically seeks exemption of Tamil Nadu from NEET 2017. If the bill is passed before the due date, then the State Counselling through NEET will be canceled and the class 12th marks will be used to grant admission.
“The only solution to safeguard the interest of the students in the state is to work towards securing the presidential assent to the NEET bill passed unanimously in the state legislature,” said Stalin.
When NEET was enforced, the interested of rural candidates was raised as an issue. To this, Union Health Minister JP Nadda advised the state government to give reservation to the rural region candidates. However, no such initiative was taken by the government.
The consequences following the NEET row do not seem any better. The national board students of Tamil Nadu is now concerned for its admission under government seat. Is the state actually doing it all to protect the interests of the students or is a brilliant move to increase the pressure and get a nod for the passing the bill? What are your views on the matter? Let us know in the comment section below.
