State students facing big loss with NEET: BRS leader

Hyderabad: Senior BRS leader B Vinod Kumar has said that Telangana students were facing a big loss with the NEET examination. He recalled that when the Central government brought this Act on December 21, 2010 the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi strongly opposed it. States like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir too opposed it and approached the Supreme Court in 2013 and 2016.

“The State governments had argued that the NEET examination policy was taking away the rights of the States provided by the Constitution,” he said.

Vinod said irregularities in NEET had left lakhs of students worried about their future. About 1.4 lakh students have appeared from Telangana. The question arises now is why should the students of Telangana face consequences for the mistakes committed in north Indian States like Gujarat, Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. There are more losses than benefits to the Telangana students, he added.

He said about 15% seats in the State medical colleges fall under the 'all-India Quota pool'. “Because of this quota, students of Telangana were losing 519 seats. While there are 30 PG medical colleges in the State, only ten are government colleges. Of the 1,267 seats 50% seats fall in the all-India Pool Quota; because of this the State students were losing 621 seats,” he pointed out.

“According to Article 371-D, if State students study MBBS in other States, they will become non-local for the PG medical courses; this is leading to a stop in medical studies. The government should demand a review of the 2018 SC order and request that the State government conduct the examination,” Vinod Kumar said.