Health department to hold meeting to select state medical exam’s date

Senior officials of the state health department and the West Bengal Joint Entrance Board (WBJEEB) may hold meeting on Monday to select the date of state medical entrance examination. It may be mentioned that Centre had issued ordinance allowing some states to hold their own medical entrance examination for this year partially overturning the Supreme Court’s order to hold National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), national level single entrance examination.

The meeting will be held to discuss various issues relating to the medical entrance examination. The schedule and the date of the examination will likely to be announced after Monday’s meeting. In all probability the examination will be held in the mid of July. The WBJEEB was earlier planning to hold the examination in the last week of June.

It is now the biggest challenge for the health department and the WBJEEB to complete the entire process of selecting the successful candidates on time as all the admissions to undergraduate medical courses must be completed by September 30 as per the Supreme Court guidelines and the Medical Council of India’s norms. If the examination is held in mid July, one and half month’s time will be available to conduct the counseling of all the successful candidates in various phases which is a ‘nearly impossible task’, feel the experts. 

The WBJEEB and the health department now take more than three and half months to complete the entire processes of counseling of the successful candidates. Every year the state government holds the medical entrance examination in the middle of April, the result of which is declared within June 5. The admission processes are completed by September 30 by the time the first year MBBS classes already get started. But this year the examination will be taken place in the middle of July. As a result of this the health department and WBJEEB may face challenges.

As there was a delay in taking the decision whether the state level entrance would take place or the successful medical candidates would be selected through the NEET.