The Delhi government today came out in full support of the Supreme Court order on single entrance test NEET for admissions to the medical and dental programmes across the country and requested the Centre to implement it at the earliest to check alleged irregularities in the enrollment process.
Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said the judgment of the Supreme Court was major reform to improve medical education in the country and the order should not be circumvented by an ordinance as demanded by one section.
In a series of tweets, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, "Del govt favors NEET. Central govt, in collusion wid most state Govts, planning to kill NEET to favor mafia.
"Kudos to @SatyendarJain who singlehandedly opposed efforts to kill NEET in Central n state Health Ministers' meet today."
Jain presented Delhi government's views on matter at a meeting of State Health Ministers convened by Union Health Minister J P Nadda to discuss the issue.
"The Delhi government welcomes and strongly supports the decision of the Supreme Court that the admission for undergraduate medical and dental courses across the country would be purely on the basis of the NEET from this academic session," said Jain.
He said Delhi government requested the Centre to immediately implement the Supreme Court order so as to "put an immediate end to widespread malpractices allegedly involved in the admission process of medical institutes in various parts of the country".
"Health Ministers of many states have not opposed the decision of the Supreme Court in toto, but some of them expressed strong reservations that NEET should not be conducted and the states should be allowed to conduct their own admission tests.
"There is now a reasonable apprehension that the Supreme Court judgement could be circumvented by way of an ordinance to do away with NEET for this academic year to begin with," Jain said.
In the meeting, Delhi government strongly opposed any dilution of the Supreme Court judgement on the NEET issue and demanded that it should be implemented immediately.
"Delhi government agrees with the view that medical education in the country is allegedly a Rs 20,000 crore industry marked with capitation fee and widespread corruption.
"Currently the scenario is grim with businessmen and politicians without any medical background owning and managing private medical colleges in a system endemic with huge corruption, denying genuine meritorious students lacking financial resources an opportunity to pursue medical education," Jain said.
