Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah
Credit: DH Photo/Krishnakumar P S.
Bengaluru: The state government is all set to pass a resolution in the ongoing Legislative session seeking exemption from National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admissions to medical courses. The resolution against NEET was approved by the Cabinet, which met late on Monday evening.
According to the sources from the department of Medical Education, the resolution is not in line with Tamil Nadu. “We will be stressing on allowing the state to conduct admissions to medical and dental courses through the Karnataka Common Entrance Test (KCET). It is not that we will be opposing NEET,” said a senior official of the department.
“KCET is a model for the entire country and we want to bring even medical courses under its purview. As NEET was implemented following a direction from the Supreme Court and by the act of Parliament, we cannot conduct our own test, but we can request for bringing the admissions under the examination which is already in practice and also lauded across the country,” explained the official.
According to the information available, the resolution is likely to be passed on Tuesday or Wednesday.
“We are not following the Tamil Nadu model. Their contention is not to have any entrance examination and only PUC 2 marks for admissions to medical courses. But our urge is to consider 50% from the qualifying examination and 50% from the entrance test and allow us to conduct admissions through KCET,” the official mentioned.
Cabinet decisions
It is learnt that the Cabinet approved a resolution against the “one nation, one election” plan that the union government is pushing for. A resolution on the concerns over the delimitation of constituencies being harmful for the prospects of the southern states was also discussed in the Cabinet.
In other decisions, the Cabinet is said to have approved providing Rs 17.08 crore for the Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security (CySecK), whose total cost is Rs 53.25 crore. The centre is coming up in association with the IISc and Foundation for Science Innovation and Development (FSID).
Approval to create a corpus fund of Rs 10 crore at the Bengaluru Science Gallery was discussed, sources said.
The Cabinet also discussed revised estimates of Rs 90.6 crore for constructing additional wards with a 1,000-bed capacity at the Victoria Hospital in Bengaluru.