Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin called on Governor R.N. Ravi at the Raj Bhavan on Saturday and urged him to send the Bill passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly seeking to dispense with NEET for admissions to medical courses, to the President of India immediately for his assent.
In September this year, the Assembly passed the Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill, 2021 to provide admission to undergraduate medical courses in the State on the basis of marks obtained in Class XII through ‘normalisation methods’ as was done before 2017.
The Bill was tabled in the Assembly after a high-level committee headed by retired High Court judge, Justice A.K. Rajan said in the report that NEET ‘clearly undermined’ the diverse social representation in MBBS and higher medical studies favouring mainly the affluent sections of society, and that if the examination continued for a few more years, the healthcare system of Tamil Nadu would be very badly affected.
Two legislations of a similar nature passed by the Assembly during the previous AIADMK rule did not get the President’s assent.
State Water Resources Minister Duraimurugan, Health Minister Ma. Subramanian, Health Secretary J. Radhakrishnan, Principal Secretary in the CM’s office T. Udhayachandran and Officer on Special Duty in the Health Department, P. Senthil Kumar, accompanied the Chief Minister on Saturday.
