‘Abolish NEET’: What Mamata wrote to PM Modi. Read here

“Such instances jeopardise the career and aspirations of lakhs and lakhs of students who look forward to get admission into these medical courses. Such instances not only compromise the quality of medical education in the country but adversely affect the quality of medical facilities/treatment in the country,” Banerjee said.

In her letter, Banerjee pointed out that states were allowed to conduct their own entrance examinations for medical courses before 2017 and this system functioned smoothly. “In this regard, this is also to point out that before 2017, the states were allowed to conduct their own entrance examinations and the central government also used to conduct its own examinations for admission into the medical courses. This system was functioning smoothly and without much problems,” the letter read.

“This was better attuned to the regional curricula and educational standards. The state government usually spends more than Rs 50 lakh per doctor on education and internship. Therefore, the state should be given freedom to select medical students through Joint Entrance Examination,” Banerjee added.

“The decentralised system was later changed to a unitary and centralised system of examination (NEET) so as to take complete control of all the admissions in the country in the medical courses without any involvement of the state governments. This is completely unacceptable and violates the true spirits of the federal structure of the country,” Mamata Banerjee said.

“Further, the present system has led to massive corruption which benefits only the rich who can afford to pay, while the meritorious students belonging to the poor and middle class suffer and are the biggest victims..,” she added.

“Therefore, I strongly urge upon you to consider and take immediate steps to restore the previous system of conducting this examination by the state governments and abolish the NEET examination. This will help restore normalcy and confidence of the aspirant students in the system,” she urged PM Modi through her letter.

This year’s NEET-UG results have sparked a controversy following allegations of irregularities involving grace marks, errors, paper leaks etc. The subsequent furore has seen a re-test being held for 1,563 students, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) taking over a probe into the ‘irregularities’, the National Testing Agency chief being shunted out, and the Centre setting up a panel to plan exam reforms.