NEW DELHI: President Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday gave his assent to an ordinance that allows state boards to skip uniform medical entrance examination NEET for a year.
Health minister JP Nadda had met Pranab Mukherjee on Monday to clarify on a few points raised by the President on the urgency to issue the ordinance.
The President had earlier asked the health ministry to explain the reason for taking the ordinance route to keep state boards out of the ambit of NEET.
The ordinance was sent to the President on Saturday. Nadda was to attend a global health summit in Geneva but had to cancel the trip to meet the President.
The ordinance, cleared by the Cabinet earlier on Friday, is aimed at “partially” overturning the SC order which said all government colleges, deemed universities and private medical colleges would be covered under NEET.
Clarifying that the exemption is only for the state government seats, government sources had said the state seats which are earmarked in the private medical colleges have also been exempted.
Different states earmark seats in various private medical colleges for state quota so that students from one state can get seats in another state.
The next phase of the exam is scheduled for July 24.
Nearly 6.5 lakh students have already taken the medical entrance test in the first phase of NEET held on May 1.
