The assent of the President is still awaited for NEET

NEET ordinance gets President Pranab’s assent 

President Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday gave his assent to the ordinance on uniform medical entrance examination NEET, ahead of his four-day visit to China. The ordinance was sent to the president on Saturday.

On Monday, the president had sought more information and clarification on a few points from the Health Ministry over the decision to bring an Ordinance on NEET, that seeks to keep state boards out of its purview.

The need for more information was conveyed to Health Minister JP Nadda who called on the President to brief him about the need for bringing the Executive Order before his visit to China.

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The meeting lasted for close to an hour and the minister is learnt to have briefed the President on three set of issues — different exams of state boards, syllabi and regional languages.

Health Ministry sources said that during the meeting some fresh information was sought by the President.

The sources later said that the additional information sought by the President has been sent.

The President had earlier asked Nadda’s ministry to explain the reason for taking the Ordinance route to keep state boards out of the ambit of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).

Nadda was to attend a global health summit in Geneva but had to cancel the trip to meet the President.

The Ordinance, cleared by the Union Cabinet earlier on Friday, is aimed at “partially” overturning a Supreme Court order which said all government colleges, deemed universities and private medical colleges would be covered under NEET.

The President has also sought the opinion of in-house legal experts on the Ordinance. The assent of the President is still awaited.

Clarifying that the exemption is only for the state government seats, government sources had said the state seats which are earmarked in the private medical colleges have also been exempted.

Different states earmark seats in various private medical colleges for state quota so that students from one state can get seats in another state.

The next phase of the exam is scheduled for July 24.

Nearly 6.5 lakh students have already taken the medical entrance test in the first phase of NEET held on May 1.

Health Ministry sources said that seven states will take medical exams as per NEET while in six other states, around 4 lakh students have already taken the examinations.