By virtue of the Ordinance, West Bengal along with a few other states can hold their own medical entrance examination to admit candidates at various undergraduate medical and dental courses in the state-run colleges. But from next year, medical aspirants in the state will have to appear in the national level single entrance examination, NEET.
After getting the final nod from the Centre, the state government is now planning to conduct state-level medical entrance examinations in the third week of June. Senior officials from the state health department and the WBJEE Board will hold a high level meeting this week chalking out plans on how the examination would be conducted.
According to a senior official of the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examinations Board, the medical entrance examination may be held on June 19. It may be mentioned that state Joint Entrance Examination for the admission of candidates in engineering and B. Pharmacy courses was held on May 17 but medical examination was withheld as there was a ruling of the Supreme Court that NEET should be implemented from this year.
Due to the delay in taking the decision, the state medical entrance examination will in all probability be held in the third week of June — one month behind the scheduled date of examination. But as per the norms, admission of candidates to various courses in the state-run medical colleges and dental colleges must be completed by September 1 and the classes should begin by September 30. Hence it is a challenge before the state government to complete the entire process of admission within time.
The state joint board had decided not show the answer scripts. This has invited criticism from various doctors’ organisations. Till the last year, the medical aspirants were shown their answer scripts but this year the Joint board is planning not to show the answer scripts due to lack of time. Several doctors’ organisations said that candidates should be given an opportunity to see their answer scripts to maintain transparency in the entire selection process.
Around 65,000 medical aspirants who were confused which examination they had to sit for, have now heaved a sigh of relief after they came to know that the state government has received a green signal from the Centre to hold the medical entrance exam. These students would have been in serious inconvenience as they were not acquainted with the NEET syllabus. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) conducts the NEET examination.
There was no hope after the Supreme Court had ruled that NEET should be implemented from this year. Various state governments had urged the Centre to take some steps in this regard following which an all-party meeting was held in Delhi. A meeting was also held with the Union Health Minister J P Nadda and the Health Minister of various states including West Bengal. All the states which represented the meeting in Delhi urged the Centre to take measures so that the candidates in those states do not suffer due to their unfamiliarity with NEET syllabus.