A NEET Scam

Experts suggest better use of technology and further centralisation of the exam’s management. Some want a reset to the old system of state exams.

- Pritha Roy Choudhury

The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the single exam that regulates admission into undergraduate medicine, was meant to end corruption in medical education.

In September, as yet another jaw-dropping scandal broke in the world of medical it became obvious that the NEET is still at some distance from achieving its objective.

The “NEET impersonation scam”, involving a Tamil Nadu student, his doctor father, an impersonator from Karnataka and a conspirator from Kerala, broke out with the arrest of a first-year student of Theni Government Medical College in Tamil Nadu on September 25 for allegedly clearing the NEET by paying an impersonator to writing his exam in Mumbai. More such alleged cheats were identified as the case ballooned to involve more colleges, students and parents. By mid-October, the Tamil Nadu Crime Branch’s Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) had made 10 arrests.

Those who had opposed the NEET and the centralisation of medical admission it brought over in 2016 and 2017, feel vindicated. Others, however, maintain that NEET is the only way to tackle corruption and that its processes must be strengthened with technology.

Every year lakhs of candidates appear for the exam. In 2019, over 14.10 lakh candidates wrote the test of whom

7,97,042 qualified. The number of seats across the country at present is 76,928.

The scam