President Pranab Mukherjee puts his stamp on NEET ordinance

New Delhi: Decks were cleared yesterday for exempting state government medical colleges from the Supreme Court-mandated single All India entrance exam for a year with President Pranab Mukherjee giving his assent to the NEET Ordinance before he embarked on his China visit.

The Union Cabinet had cleared the ordinance exempting state governments from NEET for a year on Friday, a decision that made students and parents happy. File pic

States now have the option of either conducting their own exam or becoming a part of the NEET to fill 85 per cent of the Under Graduate (UG) medical and dental seats. 15 per cent of the remaining seats will be filled through NEET route by all India counselling.

While giving details of the Ordinance, Union Health Minister J P Nadda said it gave a "firm statutory status" to the concept of Uniform Entrance Examination. However, he made it very clear that all private medical
colleges and deemed universities will come under the ambit of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).

However, for PG courses, the exam will be held under NEET for 2017-18 session, in December this year. Allaying apprehensions that the Centre is trying to defer NEET through the Ordinance, Nadda said that NEET is already implemented and the second phase will be held on July 24.