E-Paper
16 states perform above national average in NEET
In Nagaland, 82% of aspirants who appeared in the exam were declared qualified, followed by Delhi (75%), Chandigarh (72.6%), Rajasthan (70%), Haryana (68.6%), Punjab (67.6%), Odisha (61%), West Bengal (58.7%), and Uttarakhand (57.6%).
At least 16 states and Union territories (UTs) have performed better than the national pass percentage average in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate) this year, according to data compiled by the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the exam.
NTA announced the NEET (UG) 2022 results late on Wednesday night. The exam for admissions to undergraduate medical colleges was held on July 17, with 94.2% applicants taking the test. According to the agency, 1,764,571 students appeared in the exam conducted at 3,570 centres spread across 497 cities in the country and 14 cities out of India, of which 993,069 or 56.28% candidates qualified the test.
In terms of state-wise performance, the NTA data suggest that 16 states and UTs recorded a higher passing percentage than the national average. In Nagaland, 82% of aspirants who appeared in the exam were declared qualified, followed by Delhi (75%), Chandigarh (72.6%), Rajasthan (70%), Haryana (68.6%), Punjab (67.6%), Odisha (61%), West Bengal (58.7%), and Uttarakhand (57.6%).
Three of the five southern states — Andhra Pradesh (61.7%), Karnataka (59%) and Telangana (59.2%) — also performed above the national average. However, Tamil Nadu with 51.2% and Kerala (55 %) were among the states with pass percentage below the national average, according to the NTA data.
NEET (UG), which is the country’s biggest entrance exam for admission to MBBS and BDS courses at the undergraduate level, saw the highest number of registrations this year at 1,872,343. However, the pass percentage average remained nearly the same as last year.
Other states and UTs with pass percentage below the national average included Uttar Pradesh (53.5%), Jammu and Kashmir (54.9%), Manipur (54.7%),Tripura ((49.5%), Chhattisgarh (48%), Maharashtra (46.4%), Madhya Pradesh (44.8%) and Assam (51.3%).
Officials at the NTA said the pass percentage of states varies from year to year depending on the number of candidates appearing for the exam and performance of candidates.
As many as 429,160 male candidates out of 763,545 who appeared in the exam and 563,902 females out of 1,001,015 cleared the exam this year.
NEET was conducted in 13 languages: Assamese, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.
According to NTA data, like previous years, maximum candidates (1,476,024) opted for English as the medium, followed by Hindi (258,827), Gujarati (49,638) and Bengali (42,663). Interestingly, the number of candidates opting for Tamil as medium of examination increased to 31,965 this year from last year’s tally of 19,868.
“The reason behind the significant increase in the number of candidates opting for Tamil as medium is an increase in the number of registration from Tamil Nadu,” said a senior NTA official.
As per the data, 142,894 candidates registered from Tamil Nadu for NEET-UG this year, with 132,167 appearing in the exam. Last year, the number of students registering and appearing was 121,617 and 99,610, respectively.
Meanwhile, the range of qualifying marks this year dropped as compared to last year. While the range of qualifying marks for unreserved categories was set at 715-117 as against 720-138 in 2021, the cut-off for OBC, SC and ST categories came down from 137-108 in 2021 to 116-93 this year, the NTA data suggest.
