NEET 2021 — the national level medical entrance examination was held on Sunday at various centresin the State.
The examination was held from 2 pm to 5 pm with around 40,000 students taking up the examination in Jharkhand. As the examination is held under Covid pandemic, the National Testing
Agency (NTA) has issued safety guidelines for appearing in the examination.
As per NTA guidelines, students reaching the examination centre were asked to bring passport size photograph,
admit card and a photo ID to enter the examination. NEET
examination is held in pen and paper mode.
The students were asked to reach the examination centres wearing masks. Social distance guidelines were followed in the examination centre.
All communication devices, such as mobile phones, earphones, microphones, pager, are barred in the examination. No pencil box, geometry box, calculator, writing pad, electronic pens, log tables, plastic pouch were allowed inside the exam centres. Wristwatches, health bands, goggles, belts, handbags, bracelets, cameras, etc were also prohibited in the examination centres. Candidates were asked to reach the examination without shoes. Only slippers and sandals with low heels are allowed.
The NEET examination consisted of one question paper containing 180 MCQ from Biology (Botany and Zoology), Physics, Chemistry and Physics.
Meanwhile, students were happy with the examination papers. Ankit Sharma, a NEET aspirant said, “The examination paper was moderate. Biology paper was easy, chemistry
was moderate and physics was tough.”
The student further said that as paper was moderate it is expected that this year the cutoff marks will be higher.
However, for NEET aspirants from State this year they have to fight for fewer seats, as National Medical Commission (NMC) has not given permission to Palamu, Dumka and Hazaribag medical colleges to enroll new students. These colleges have been barred from taking admission this year due to lack of infrastructure in these colleges. Consequently, there has been a massive shortage in the number of MBBS seats in Jharkhand this year, with only three government medical colleges — MGM College Jamshedpur (100 seats), RIMS Ranchi (180 seats), PMCH Dhanbad (50 seats) — as opposed to six. Additionally, a private medical Manipal-Tata Medical College, Jamshedpur, has about 25 seats under it.
On 5 November last year, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren had written a letter to the chairman of the NMC, urging him to not stop fresh admissions of medical students to Dumka, Hazaribagh and Palamu medical colleges. In his letter, CM Soren stated that installation of some equipment could not be completed due to the Covid lockdown.