Tamil Nadu’s 40-odd medical colleges have suffered losses because of the abolition of capitation fees due to switching over to the all-India test mode
“Boys ride toys. Men ride Royal Enfield,” were the catchwords of the legendary bike when it was introduced in the Indian market in the 1950s. Interestingly, the company had set up its assembly plant in a suburb of Chennai. The same Chennai and its Dravidian politicians have given a clarion call to the people of the State to launch an agitation of a different kind and it brought back the seven-decade-old RE battle cry to the mind.
“Let the Dravidians have their fun but leave the people alone” will be the ideal catchword that can sum up the situation in Tamil Nadu. Chief Minister M K Stalin, who is the eternal president of the DMK, has declared that the State would launch an agitation against the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the all-India screening examination to select students for the undergraduate courses in the country’s medical and dental colleges. While the rest of the country is rejoicing over the new mode of the selection process for medical colleges, Tamil Nadu and its DMK have called for a war against NEET. If other States opt for the NEET, that’s their headache but this selection process is not welcome in Tamil Nadu, says Stalin.
Since public memory is short, the Dravidian politicians, especially the Karunanidhi clan always have their cake and eat it too. It was the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government at the Centre that brought in the concept of NEET to make the admission process to undergraduate medical colleges in the country transparent and students-friendly. The K-clan’s DMK was the second largest constituent of the UPA Government and the party remained tight-lipped when the Central Government went ahead with the implementation of the NEET. Though owners of private medical colleges challenged the NEET, the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court junked their plea and asked the Centre to implement it as early as possible.
There was no sign from the K-clan or anybody at that time. The then chief minister J Jayalalithaa wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his successor Narendra Modi how Tamil Nadu was thoroughly unprepared for the NEET and sought time to switch over to the new format and this was granted without delay. The AIADMK Government launched ambitious NEET training centres across the State to prepare the students for the screening test. The response was encouraging and the number of students who made it to the MBBS and BDS courses was proof of this initiative.
The fact is that TN has more than 40 medical colleges and the management suffered a big loss because of the abolition of the capitation fee and switching over to the all-India test mode. Each MBBS seat in the management quota commanded a premium of Rs one crore and more as parents from neighbouring Kerala and Andhra Pradesh besides the NRIs made a beeline to Tamil Nadu for admission to the undergraduate courses for their wards. No need to explain who the owners of the medical colleges are.
(The writer is a correspondent with the Pioneer. Views expressed are personal)