Ministry,MCI spar over CET

On Monday, the Health Ministry asked the MCI board of governors to withdraw the two CET notifications for undergraduate and postgraduate courses issued on December 21 as they were issued without prior ministerial approval as required by the law.

But after an emergency MCI meeting in New Delhi, one of the members of the board told Deccan Herald: “The two common entrance tests are going to happen. It will be held this year.”

The proposed national eligibility-cum-entrance test was a brainchild of the new MCI board that came into being last year. But it soon ran into political trouble with the Tamil Nadu government, which does not hold an entrance exam and admits students solely on the basis of Class XII marks, opposing the move. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi took up the issue with the prime minister following which the ministry decided to go slow on the NEET.

The NEET issue also came in the Supreme Court, where Tamil Nadu too intervened marking its objections. But the apex court ruled that it would not block implementation of the NEET and said it would look at it as and when problems arose. The MCI hurried the two notifications soon after the court directive, apprehending that not doing so would be tantamount to contempt of court, sources said.

The ministry, however, wanted to build a political consensus before going ahead with the NEET. A meeting of the state health secretaries under the chairmanship of Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has been proposed between January 11-13 where the pros and cons of the NEET will be discussed.  The latest MCI stand caps a 48-hour period during which the fate of the single CET has swung wildly.

Another board member said a second meeting might be held next week to decide on the future course of action.

The NEET was proposed to lessen the burden of aspiring doctors who have to appear as many as 17 examinations to secure a place in a medical college. The exam proposes a single national merit list with reservations as applicable to the states and the management of private medical colleges.

The NEET is to replace most of the entrance exams conducted by almost all medical institutes and state governments with the exception of AIIMS in Delhi and Armed Forces Medical College, Pune.