Implementation of NEET is a Big Failure: A Key Note by iDC’s Founder

This year the Indian government created a big confusion on the implementation of NEET. Finally, after the order of honorable Supreme Court and various ordinances/Bills (which involved a lot of politics) passed by the Indian government, the following implementations were introduced regarding the admission of students in medical colleges in India: 

• All private medical colleges in India would grant admission to MBBS and BDS courses via NEET score which is a centralized entrance exam to select students for medical courses in India. They can’t conduct their own entrance exams. 
  
• All government medical colleges in India will also accept NEET scores with the only exceptions given for this year i.e. for States to use their own entrance exams. But from next year (2017) all government medical colleges will have to accept NEET scores only and they can’t conduct their own medical entrance exams.  
  
  This year many states have agreed to use NEET exam scores like Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Andaman & Nicobar, Manipur, Meghalaya, Odisha, Rajasthan, UP, Uttarakhand, and Delhi. But states like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu conducted their own entrance exams this year. From next year all State government medical colleges can grant admissions only via the NEET score.
  
  *Only exception here are AIIMS and JIPMER who do not come under this law and will continue to conduct their own entrance exams (on their own discretion) in the coming years. 
  
• Every centralized govt. or State govt. college in India (except institutions in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Jammu & Kashmir) has to allocate their 15% of total seats for all India students (irrespective of states), and such 15% seats in each government college will be filled by a centralized counselling process, to be conducted by Director General Health Services, MCI in NEET centralized counselling process.  For the rest 85%, govt. medical colleges can fill seats via State counselling process where students from only the home state would be eligible to take admission.  

After a lot of hue and cry, the NEET exam was conducted in two phases – NEET 1 & NEET 2. And students felt that now the problem is over and there is a transparent process to get a medical seat in India.  But as soon as the NEET results were announced on 16th August 2016, students started to panic and had no clue about the admission counselling process.  There existed following confusions: 

1. How will NEET conduct 15% all India Quota counselling process? 
2. How will private medical colleges grant admission via NEET scores? Will it be via centralized counselling or via State counselling or some consortium counselling like COMEDK etc. ? 
3. How will the NRI quota seats be filled? 
4. Does private medical college still have management quota seats? Can they still take admission via donation? 
5. How will 85% of State quota seats be filled?  
6. As NEET centralized counseling process for 15% All India Quota was made online for the first time, students had no clue about how to participate in it?
   

I wrote the following article to clear this confusion – https://idreamcareer.com/blog/neet-2024-exam-date/ which clarifies the doubts regarding the above confusion related to NEET 2016 counselling process.  

After all of this, students have begun to see the true face of private medical colleges. As private medical colleges across India started to release their notifications for separate admission counselling process via NEET scores, students were shocked to see the fees of medical courses. Please see it below yourself: 

• NIMS, Jaipur – Rs. 25 lacs per annum (that is almost 1.10 Cr for complete MBBS course)
• DY Patil Medical College – Rs. 16 lacs per annum
• Manipal – Rs. 9.19 lacs per annum

Most of the private medical colleges have doubled their fees this year and minimum fees starting in any private medical college is Rs. 5.5 lacs per annum. Please note hostel, food, books, etc fees are noninclusive.  How would a student from low income or even mid-income family be able to pay such hefty fees?  

How did private medical colleges take advantage of the loopholes in the NEET implementation process? 

• As there was no fees cap implemented by SC or government, the private medical college increased their fees to such a level where meritorious students who have scored high in NEET won’t be able to take admission. This will ensure that the cut-off is decreased and the seats are offered to students who belong to high-income families (who are not so good in studies and have scored fewer marks in NEET exam) who can pay such hefty fees. With this, we can expect what quality of doctors will be produced by these private medical colleges.  
  
  Moreover, meritorious students who have somehow not been able to get a government medical college stand nowhere now. So the entire motive of SC and government to put in place a common entrance exam like NEET which will help to improve the quality of doctors went in the drain. Overall there was no meaning or change by implementing NEET and its complete failure to bring any change in the medical college admission process.
    
• There is no clarity on the NRI quota process – whether colleges can take NRI students without NEET or not? Thus private medical colleges have increased their NRI quota seats and started taking students even without NEET scores at much higher fees (Approx. 35-50 lacs per annum).  
  
• As there was no clarity given on the admission counselling process of private medical colleges, they started to conduct their own counselling process to take admission via NEET scores. This means that students need to apply to all private colleges separately by filling an application form which will cost them Rs. 1000-2000 per college and there are over 150 private medical colleges in India. With their own admission counselling process, private medical colleges will take undue advantage by creating their own laws and processes to admit students, thus creating ways to accept the donation.  

By the means of the aforementioned ways, private medical colleges are STILL involved in profiteering, and government or Supreme Court have been able to do nothing about it. Doing business is good but being greedy is bad, and specially when you are involved in creating future doctors of our country. Even post-implementation of a single medical entrance exam we see no change in the way private medical colleges conduct their admission process.

This is not fair and transparent. Medical students have continued to face such issues from the past 5 years. I do say that implementing NEET is a good thing but the government needs to implement the following two processes in addition to NEET: 

1. Put a fee cap on private medical colleges – This could be segregated based on the category of the medical college. An agency should rate private medical colleges, and different categories of colleges should have different course fees cap structures. This will regulate the fee structure in private colleges.  
   
2. Create an All India centralized admission counselling process for all private medical colleges or at least have a state-wise common admission counselling process for all the private medical colleges, thus ensuring a transparent admission process.  If the government is really serious about creating quality doctors in our country, it needs to consider taking corrective measures on this matter on a priority basis.  

Ayush BansalCareer Development Facilitator & CEO, iDreamCareer

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NEET 2017 Counselling Guidance Program by iDreamCareer was one of the only career counselling company in India which was helping medical students across India on the entire NEET medical admission process in 2016. We helped over 2.5 lac medical aspirants in 2016.

Most importantly, unlike other career counselling companies, we are 100% UNBIASED while we guide students. We do not tie-up with any college/university or sell our student database to third party agencies. We have not involved in any donation-based admission. We only provide unbiased and independent career guidance to students. 

Register for iDreamCareer’s NEET guidance program which will provide credible and unbiased information and guidance to students.

Under NEET guidance program students will receive:

1. Single Counselling session on telephone (up to 15 minutes)
2. Email Alerts on NEET, AIIMS & JIMPER exams.
3. Email Alerts on all the medical colleges (both govt. and private) admission process. This also includes sending alerts on all the counselling process of different medical colleges in India.
4. Unlimited NEET 2016 counselling query support on email till Sep 30 – You can simply keep on asking your query related to NEET and our counselors will answer back within 48 working hours.

This program cost is Rs. 2,000 per student only. Register on this link – https://www.instamojo.com/idreamcareer/neet-2016-counselling-guidance-program-by-id/

If you are a medical aspirant and looking to get career guidance, feel free to reach us at 9555990000 or write to us at [email protected] to know about our career guidance program. We will be happy to guide you.