Tamil Nadu Passes Bill To Permanently Exempt NEET

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The News

Tamil Nadu has been opposing the NEET since 2017 citing various reasons like
- NEET goes against spirit of federalism
- NEET goes against spirit of social equality
- NEET is based in CBSE while TN syllabus is different
- NEET will lead to students from other states getting seats in TN etc

On Sept 11, a day before National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, a 19-year-old youth belonging to a village in Tamil Nadu died by suicide. This was supposed to be his third attempt at NEET.
After the incident blame game began.
- The main opposition AIADMK blamed the DMK regime for his death.
- DMK chief MK Stalin targeted the Centre and blamed it for his death.
  - Stalin also assured of passing a Bill in the Assembly soon to “permanently exempt” Tamil Nadu from the ambit of NEET.

The preamble of the bill cites that it is based on the based on the recommendation of the high-level committee led by retired judge AK Rajan, which submitted its report in July 2021.
Apparently, the report was prepared after looking into around 86,000 representations from various stakeholders, a majority of whom said they don’t want NEET.
- The report said that, NEET had “clearly undermined” the diverse societal representation in MBBS and higher medical studies, favouring mainly the affluent segment of society. The most affected groups were the students of Tamil medium; students having a rural background; those from government schools
- The panel concluded that if NEET continued for a few more years, the healthcare system of Tamil Nadu would be “very badly affected, and there may not be enough doctors” to be posted at Primary Health Centres or government hospitals, and the rural and urban poor may not be able to join the medical courses.
- It was in favour of immediate steps to eliminate NEET from being used in admission to medical programmes “at all levels”.

The Permanent Exemption Bill for NEET exempts medical aspirants in Tamil Nadu from taking NEET examination for admission to UG degree courses in Indian medicine, dentistry and homeopathy.
The bill seeks to provide admission to such courses on the basis of marks obtained in the qualifying examination (XIIth), through “Normalisation methods”.
The aim of the Bill is to ensure “social justice, uphold equality and equal opportunity, protect all vulnerable student communities from being discriminated”.