DMK President MK Stalin on Tuesday slammed the Union government for introducing a common entrance exam — Institute of National Importance Combined Entrance Test (INI-CET) — for admissions to Postgraduate (PG) medical courses in union government-run medical colleges. The main point of Stalin’s criticism was over the Union government introducing another entrance test for certain educational institutions, when a centralised entrance test like NEET is already in place.
Stalin said in a statement that the Union government had told the courts that Tamil Nadu cannot be exempted from NEET as it is a common exam across the country and now has come up with an entrance exam for central medical colleges.
“It is highly condemnable,” he said in a statement, adding. “The Union government betrayed Tamil Nadu by refusing to exempt the state from NEET,” Stalin said in a statement. He further demanded that admissions should be based on 69% reservation in Tamil Nadu.
INI-CET will be conducted for the first time across the country. The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi will conduct INI-CET and the marks scored in this test will be the criteria for admission to AIIMS Delhi, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur, Patna, Raipur and Rishikesh, NIMHANS Bengaluru, JIPMER Puducherry and PGI Chandigarh. With effect from 2021, all these institutes will admit PG students based on marks obtained in INI-CET only. The examination will be conducted twice a year in online mode. At present, admissions to PG medical courses are based on the marks scored by candidates in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-PG).
The DMK chief also demanded abolishing of NEET exam for undergraduate courses. Tamil Nadu has been at the forefront against NEET-UG and has been demanding an exemption from the entrance test for admitting students to the state-government run medical colleges. The Tamil Nadu government opposition leader had taken up cudgels against the Union government for refusing to exempt the state from NEET for UG courses and accused the NDA government of betraying Tamil Nadu over the same.
Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) leader TTV Dhinakaran also condemned the common entrance test on Twitter, calling it a “historic blunder.” In a series of tweets, he also took potshots at the government’s decision for conducting a combined entrance test for PG courses.