NEET: No discretion for private colleges

With the government considering putting private medical colleges under the ambit of NEET this year, the discretion of private colleges in choosing the candidates is expected to end.

Speaking to this newspaper on Wednesday, health minister J.P. Nadda had said that even as the government was considering giving a grace period of one year to government medical colleges from NEET, there is no looking back on private colleges. This will ideally mean that private medical colleges will have to go by merit and be controlled by the fee structure of the government.

According to the sources, once NEET II is conducted, the AIPMT list this year shall be drawn from the NEET eligible candidates. “Earlier there used to be a separate AIPMT conducted by the CBSE but now there will be NEET, which has subsumed everything else. There will, however, be no change in the eligibility criteria for AIPMT, whatsoever,” sources added.

“The government medical colleges will have no change in the merit list. However, the good news for students is that the private colleges will not be able to manipulate with the 50 per cent seats that they earlier used to do. With NEET, their discretion of choosing students will go,” sources added.

The major challenge, however, will be to ensure merit-based admission in private medical colleges, which are likely to remain under the ambit of NEET.

To defer NEET for another year, a legislative process will be followed before issuing the ordinance. “The ordinance will bring out changes in the IMC Act through which NEET has been operationalised,” sources added. “The purpose of SC and the government has been met. The consultations are on and very soon a decision will be taken. But the private colleges will have to come in NEET phase II,” Mr Nadda had added.

There are about 412 medical colleges in the country, out of which 212 are private medical colleges. While 24,000 seats are in the control of private medical colleges, 26,000 seats are under the Central government.

The decision to defer NEET for another year was taken after an all-party meeting was held under the chairmanship of finance minister Arun Jaitley late on Monday evening.

The Supreme Court had earlier ruled that starting this academic session, students would have to appear in NEET to seek admission to medical or dental colleges in the country.

The apex court order had implied that all government colleges, deemed universities and private medical colleges would be covered under NEET.