CPM demands state governments to be allowed to conduct medical seats admission

CHENNAI: Alleging irregularities in the NEET exam and results declared for this year, CPM state secretary K Balakrishnan on Friday demanded that the state governments should be allowed to conduct admission for the medical seats this year.

"There have been reports that the question paper was released before the NEET exam this year and 13 people were arrested for it. The questions raised after the declaration of the exam results reveal the possibility of malpractice in the NEET exam, " he said in a statement.

He also wondered what the need to publish NEET results on the day of general election results in the country. He also questioned the need for declaring 13.16 lakh people eligible for about 1 lakh medical seats and reducing the qualifying mark to 164 marks i.e. 22.77 percentile for the general category. He said that like gambling, relaxation of eligible marks to 22 per cent can affect the quality of education, denying opportunities to the poor and needy students.

"A total of 67 students have secured full marks. This unprecedented number makes the NEET result unreliable. In particular, eight candidates who wrote in one centre in Haryana got first marks. Six of them have consecutive serial numbers, " Balakrishnan said. Pointing to the NEET marking scheme, he said that a candidate would receive four marks for each correct answer and four marks plus one mark deducted for a wrong answer raising the suspicion that the second and third placers scored 719 and 718 respectively.

"However, the National Examinations Agency claims that this is a mercy mark for lost time. It is not acceptable, " he said.

He demanded the ban on the National Examination Agency, the private agency, which conducts the NEET exam, from conducting the examination considering the continuous charges of irregularities.