13.3 lakh students to take NEET for 66,000 medical and dental seats on Sunday

NEET will be conducted in 11 languages across the country on May 6.

More than 1.33 million students across the country will vie for 66,000 medical and dental seats on Sunday when the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) will be held. This means that for every seat there will be 20 students.

“The demand for medical seats has been increasing with every passing year. While the central and respective state governments have been giving permission for new colleges, they can’t keep up with the demand,” said Dr Pravin Shingare, director of Directorate of Medical Education & Research (DMER). He said the increasing numbers could also indicate that more states are scrapping their entrance exams for other health science courses and instead depending on NEET.

NEET was first introduced in May 2013 and was quickly scrapped in 2014, paving way for states to introduce their separate exams for medical and dental institutes.

In 2016, the Supreme Court reintroduced NEET, making it the single window entrance exam for admission to all medical and dental institutes in the country.

In 2016, nearly 750,000 NEET registrations were accepted. At the time, NEET was conducted in two phases to give students extra time to prepare for the test.

NEET will be conducted in 11 languages across the country on May 6.