RTI Reply: NEET Exam brought Rs 192 crore revenue to government, no account of how it was spent

New Delhi: Exam fee for National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the gateway to MBBS,BDS as well as AYUSH admissions in the country, earned the Ministry, through its exam conducting body, upwards of Rs 192 crores this year, a RTI reply has recently revealed.

However, the response which was given to the RTI query by Neemuch-based activist Chandrashekhar Gaud, was not able to give a reply on how this money was spent by the government.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that from this year (2019) government had replaced CBSE and constituted a new body National Testing Agency (NTA) for the purpose of conducting various entrance examinations for admissions to professionals courses in the country. Besides conducting NEET for medical entrances, NTA, which is a not-for-profit organisation and fall under Human Resources Development ministry also conducts various other exams including UGC-NET,JEE for engineering entrances and many more.

For Conducting NEET 2019,which was held on May 5 this year , the online application fees was fixed and charged by NTA at Rs 1400 for general and OBC category candidates and Rs 750 for SC/ST candidates. Around 15,19,375 candidates applied for the exam of which 14,10,755 candidates appeared

These calculations revealed that the Central government through NTA earned more than Rs 192 crore from the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) fees in 2019, as per the information received under the RTI.

Replying to a RTI query from Neemuch-based activist Chandrashekhar Gaud, the National Testing Agency which conducts the NEET exam and comes under the Human Resources Development ministry, said it collected Rs 192,43,22,162 as entrance fees from the 15,19,375 candidates, who enrolled themselves for the exam in 2019.

Speaking to news agency IANS, The RTI activist said that the National Testing Agency must clarify how much it spent on the conduct of the exam in public interest.

Though the National Testing Agency, which conducts the exam claims to be a not-for-profit organisation that makes arrangements for the exams from the funds collected through fees, it is yet to give details of how it spends the Rs 192 crore it collected this year.

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This is not the first time the Centre earned such a whopping amount from the candidates. The Medical Council Committee (MCC) in 2018 earned more than Rs 18 crore through the online counselling process while it spent only Rs 2.76 crore on the its conduct, the RTI revealed.

This means that in 2018, the MCC earned a profit of Rs 15.56 crore. What happened to this amount is not known.

The testing agency, when asked by the news agency, refused to give details about the fees determination process citing various rules of RTI.