College associations to hold counselling for NEET seats

The second phase of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-II) for entry into undergraduate medical and dental courses will be held on Sunday.

A number of students not satisfied with their seat allotments or who were unable to secure a seat under the CET are likely to appear for the exam.

As many as 4.7 lakh candidates are set to write the NEET-II throughout the country, with a few thousand appearing for it in Karnataka. Most of the students in the state who hoped to secure medical and dental seats through the CET can breathe a sigh of relief as a majority of the institutions - private, minority and deemed - in the state have given their share to the government.

Others like Ashwin Shetty, a medical seat aspirant, is hoping for better prospects after NEET-II. Ashwin has already appeared for NEET-I and the CET held in May. 

“I appeared for the CET, but was not satisfied with the colleges where I got seats.

The NEET-I was hurried and there were a lot of confusion. For NEET-II, I had three months to prepare,’’said Ashwin, expressing confidence of doing better.

Abdul Qadeer, secretary, Shaheen PU College in Bidar, said 135 students from his college will be taking NEET-II as they failed to secure seats through CET.

Students and parents were shocked after the Supreme Court made NEET mandatory this year, invalidating other entrance exams like  CET. Subsequently, the court allowed students who appeared for NEET-I and were not confident of getting a good rank to take NEET -II, by foregoing their earlier results. The Centre, under pressure from various states, took the Ordinance route, allowing entrance exams like CET for this year.

While the counselling for government quota seats is being conducted by the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA), that for NEET seats will be conducted by the respective college associations, said S S Harsoor, the Medical Education director. “The ComedK and minority association can conduct their own counselling for NEET seats,” said Harsoor.

Dress code
Although there was no official notification with regard to the dos and dont’s for NEET-II, there were reports which claimed that candidates appearing for the exam were banned from wearing shoes and socks, earrings, nose pins, etc.