Rajasthan's Nalin Khandelwal topped the all India merit list of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) conducted for undergraduate medical and dental programmes this year, according to the results announced by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Wednesday.
Bhavik Bansal from Delhi came second, and Uttar Pradesh's Akshat Kaushik grabbed the third slot in the test which was taken by over 14 lakh students.
Of over 14 lakh students, a total of 7,97, 042 students (56.50%) qualified in the test.
Khandelwal emerged as the all India topper, securing 701 marks out of a total 720.
Both Bansal and Kaushik scored 700 each out of 720 marks but they were ranked second and third respectively in the all India merit list because of the percentile score of Bansal being slightly higher than that of Kaushik.
Percentage of girls qualifying the test remained higher than that of the boys.
Of over 7.80 lakh girls, a total of 4,45,761 (57.11%) came out with flying colours in the entrance test. The number of boys qualifying the test remained at 3,51,278 (55.73%) out of over 6.30 lakh appearing for the entrance examination.
Telangana's Madhuri Reddy G was placed in the first position among girls, followed by Madhya Pradesh's Kirti Agrawal in the second slot and Andhra Pradesh Qureshi Asra.
In the all India ranking list, Madhuri was ranked 7th, Kirti 15th and Qureshi 16th.
While the cut off for the general category students was at 50 percentile (701-134 marks range), it was 40th percentile (133-107 marks range) for the students belonging to the other backward class (OBC), scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST).
Over 3 lakh OBC students cleared the test scoring higher than 40th percentile while 63,789 students under this category qualified the test with 40th percentile.
Nearly 78,000 SC category students qualified the test scoring higher than 40th percentile. Those clearing the entrance test with 40th percentile was pegged at 20,009.
The number of ST students clearing the entrance examination with 40th percentile came at 8,455. Over 26,000 ST students qualified the test scoring higher than 40th percentile.
Students who appeared for the test from Delhi showed the highest pass percentage of 74.92%, followed by Haryana 73.41 %, Chandigarh 73.24%, Andhra Pradesh 70.72%, Rajasthan 69.66% and Punjab 68.61%.
Out of 4953 differently-abled students, a total of 2186 qualified the test. Among them, Sabhyata Singh Kushwaha grabbed the top position securing 610 marks out of 720.
The NTA conducted the entrance test for the first time on May 5 and May 20 at 2,546 examination centres in 154 cities across the country. Till last year, test was conducted by the central board of secondary education (CBSE).