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The NEET seems to have failed in ensuring thorough merit-based admissions in medical colleges. The statistics reveal shocking data. Is the high fee structure of the private MBBS colleges to be blamed?
In 2019, there were only about 61,000 seats to be filled through NEET UG, adding to surprise, the admission rank went down to 8.45 lakh. Here, the question arises if the process did really ensure merit-based admissions as many lower-ranking students got their way through than higher rank holders.
The disparity is not only seen in the General Category. In every category, many students holding heavily lower marks got admissions over the lakhs of deserving students in a merit-based system of NEET.
From the recently released data, it is seen that a huge number of students with much lower ranks have made it through in the private medical colleges of the country. Explaining the private medical college scenario in the country, it is observed that the tuition fees in the private medical colleges have touched the skies, for example, the annual fee ranges from 17 to 25 lakhs in the private universities. For the NRI sets, the fees can go more than 33 lakhs. If one adds related expenses like exam fees, hostel fees and various other charges, their total fees surge above 1 crore. Many students who have ranked high belong from the quota of economically weaker sections who cannot afford these colleges, for this reason, students who belong from the upper economic class background are getting into these colleges despite ranking far low.
Quota | Seats Available | Ideal NEET Percentile | Actual NEET Percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
Open | 1,18,000 | 91.6 | 50 |
OBC | 37,260 | 93.8 | 40 |
SC | 17,940 | 84.3 | 40 |
ST | 9,660 | 75.1 | 40 |
The quota system is applicable in all the government college seats and half of the government college seats, it is seen that out of all seats, 27% are reserved for OBC Category (12,500 Seats), 12.5% is for SC category (6,000 seats) and 7% seats are reserved for ST category (3,200 seats). Excluding the reservations, less than 40,000 seats get vacant for admission of open category students.
These actual number given above is far to the ideal number of seats. Experts suggest that the seats to applicant ratio of 1:3 are enough to fill all seats properly. According to this, the seats for OBC has to be 37,000; for ST 10,000 and for SC, 18,000!
In the last NEET Rank data, it is clear that out of the 87,000 top-ranked candidates, a total of 38,000 OBC candidates were present. As per the data, to fill all the NEET based OBC seats, 93.8 percentile cutoff would be enough. For SC and ST categories, a cutoff of 84.3 and 75.1 percentile cutoff was enough. 91.6 percentile of cutoff would have been proven enough to accommodate the General students in the remaining seats.
Also Read: National Medical Council to Control Fee Structure of Private Medical Colleges
Against these ideal statistics, the actual statistics show a highly abnormal picture, after the admission session is over, it is seen that the actual percentile of open quota admission is 50, similarly, in OBC, ST, and SC quota, the lowest percentile has been reported is around 40 percentile which is horrifying and clears the picture that the richer students are getting chances to study NEET leaving the truly deserving students who scored high but unable to manage the expenses for studying in private medical colleges.
This has been made a reality because the lowest cutoff requirement is kept so low that 13 students compete for 1 seat. This forces colleges to scan downwards the list to find a suitable candidate who can afford their fees.
With inputs taken from the Times of India.
