On Medical Exam NEET, MK Stalin’s Special Appeal To President

The death count in Tamil Nadu due to student suicides over NEET medical entrance exam stands at 16, Chief Minister MK Stalin informed President Droupadi Murmu, requesting her to sign the state’s anti-NEET Bill.

“Student suicides could have been avoided if our Bill for exemption from NEET was given assent,” said Mr Stalin, who earlier today appealed to students “to not entertain suicidal thoughts” after a 19-year-old died by suicide after failing to clear the medical exam.

Giving a background to the legislative process, Mr Stalin referred to the Justice A K Rajan Committee which studied the NEET-based admission process and its adverse impact on poor and rural students.

“Each day of delay in its implementation costs not only valuable medical seats to deserving students but invaluable human lives to our society. I, therefore, solicit your immediate intervention in the matter and urge you to accord assent at the earliest to the above Bill passed by the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly,” Mr Stalin wrote to the President.

A spate of alleged NEET-related suicides has been reported in the state in the past few years.

In 2021, the Tamil Nadu assembly passed a bill seeking exemption from NEET, arguing that it favors affluent students who can afford private coaching and puts students from poor families and rural areas at a disadvantage, even if they score high marks in their Class XII exams.

For nearly a decade prior to this, the state had scrapped entrance tests for medical admissions and admitted students to MBBS programs based on their Class XII marks.

Governor RN Ravi, who had returned the bill after a long delay, forwarded it to the President after the assembly passed it again. The Governor has maintained that he will “never clear the bill”.

“Look, I will be the last man to give clearance; never, ever. I do not want my children to feel intellectually disabled. I want our children to compete and be the best. They have proved it,” he had said.