Villupuram Dalit boy tops govt quota seats in medical admissions
Performance of govt school students improves; 7.5% quota topper scores 669 marks
CHENNAI: A Villupuram boy hailing from the Dalit community, who relentlessly pursued his childhood passion of becoming a cardiologist and scored 720 marks in NEET UG-2024, bagged the first rank among those vying for government quota seats, according to the rank link announced by the selection committee of the Directorate of Medical Education on Monday.
Rajaneesh P had scored 482 marks in Class 10 and 490 marks in Class 12, and attended special NEET training at a private school in Namakkal. "As I attended several mock tests, I had no fear of examination when I wrote NEET. It helped me score full marks," he said.
Incidentally, there is only one candidate from open category among the top-10 government quota seats, while there are seven from BC, and one each from SC and BC (Muslim) categories.
The performance of government school students has improved substantially this year, with the topper among 7.5 per cent horizontal quota scoring 669 marks in NEET – 100 more than what was recorded last year.
Roobika P from Krishnagiri, a student from the SC (Arunthathiyar) community, topped the rankings in this category, while Rathish G, another Arunthathiyar student, secured fourth rank with a NEET score of 665.
Syed Aarifin Yusuf M from Anna Nagar in Chennai, who is ranked second in the government quota list, came first in the management quota with a NEET score of 715 marks. Except for him and Jason Chandrajsingh J from Tirunelveli (NEET score 710), the rest all on the top-10 ranks in the management quota are from outside Tamil Nadu.
All those eight candidates are from the Open Category and all of them scored lesser than the top 10 government quota students.
The online counselling for MBBS candidates will begin at 10 am on Wednesday, while the direct counselling will be held for sports quota candidates, 7.5 per cent preferential government quota, ex-servicemen service quota and persons with disabilities on August 22-23 at Tamil Nadu Multi-Super Speciality Hospital in Omandurar.
