NEET’s AIQ, and OBC & EWS reservation; Here’s what we know

NEET’s AIQ, and OBC & EWS reservation; Here’s what we know

NEET 2021: A uniform procedure for the entrance examination for medical and dental colleges in the country has been approved by the central government with the reservation for the EWS (Economically Weaker Section) and the students from OBC categories within the All India Quota (AIQ) for NEET, last Wednesday. 

NEET- UG 2021 is the entrance examination for admission to the top-notch medical universities in the country and abroad for medical and dental courses. The exam is conducted for two levels of programs which are undergraduate and postgraduate. Formerly, AIIMS, the All India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) used to be conducted as the national-level entrance examination for medical colleges until 2016. NEET was held in 2013 for the first time but was discontinued the following year itself but from 2017 onwards, NEET has been the most prestigious national-level entrance exam for medical programs in the country. 

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April 13, 2016, the Supreme Court highlighted the newly introduced section 10-D of the Indian Medical Council Act, which administers a uniform entrance examination to all medical educational institutions at an undergraduate level and postgraduate level in languages– English, Hindi, and others. Initially, the central board CBSE used to conduct the NEET exam, but after 2017, the National Testing Agency (NTA) took over, and since 2018, it has been conducted by the NTA. In the year 2020, around 15.97 lakh students appeared for NEET (UG) while this year, the NEET is scheduled to be conducted on September 12.

The AIQ plan was launched in 1986 to provide for merit-based and domicile-free opportunities to students from other states to get admission to a recognized medical college in any other state of the country. The scheme was issued and approved under the directions of the Supreme Court. In this policy, every year, a certain number of seats are reserved in state medical colleges for students residing in their respective states. The 15% remaining seats in UG courses and 50% in PG are conceded by the states to the All India Quota.

New changes in the Reservation policy

The reservation for the EWS and OBC categories within the AIQ will be offered in medical/ dental colleges starting from the current academic year. Resulting in opportunities for up to 10,900 OBC students who would have missed out on admission under the OBC quota.