The Tamil Nadu government has created draft of a proposed ordinance which would be put in place in order to exempt students of the state from the National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) 2017. The Ministry of Home Affairs on Tuesday received the draft through a special emissary. "We are hoping it would be cleared soon. The drafts has been sent to concerned ministries — law and health for their opinion," Tamil Nadu Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan has said. Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitaraman said on Monday that the centre will cooperate with the Tamil Nadu government if it submits and ordinance for exempting its students from the medical entrance. Previously, the state ministers including chief minister K Palaniswami and Lok Sabha speaker M Thambidurai have approached Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other central ministers for the exam. NEET replaced the All India Pre Medical Test (AIPMT) last year and, since then, has been through many changes. Recently, the supreme court assented to conduct the exam in 11 languages including Urdu from next year. It has also directed the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE)— which conducts the exam— to ensure that NEET will include common questions for all languages so that there is no dispute over differences in difficulty between different language mediums.
