NEET Exemption: TN Ministers meet PM

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Ministers in the face of increasing pressures from the state met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home minister Rajnath Singh for their demand on behalf of the state to be exempted from NEET, in order to have rural candidates benefit from it.

The five member ministerial team that met the Prime Minister, sought his intervention in getting the President to sign the two bills regarding the same lying pending with him, about NEET exemption for admissions to medical and dental colleges for Tamil Nadu students. The team was led by Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M. Thambidurai.

The Tamil Nadu Admission to MBBS and Dental Courses Act, 2017means to do away with any entrance exam for UG medical courses and instead seeks that students be admitted based on their class 12 marks.

The Tamil Nadu Admission to Post Graduate Courses in Medicine and Dentistry Act, 2017, has also been passed with the opposition endorsing it through voice vote.

The ministers who met the Prime Minister included C Vijayabaskar (health and family welfare) C Ve Shanmugam (law), D Jayakumar (finance), and P Thangamani (electricity),

The ministers met Union ministers J P Nadda (health and family welfare), Ravishankar Prasad (law and justice and electronics and IT) Prakash Javadekar (human resource development) to seek help.

"NEET causes grave injustice to the rural students of Tamil Nadu. It only benefits some 4,000 CBSE students while five lakh students take (biology in) state board. The Prime has Minister assured us that he will look into our demands after consulting law ministry since a case is pending in court. We are hopeful of getting a positive outcome," Thambidurai told TOI.