Bhopal: The state government has hardly covered itself with glory by the way it handled the admissions to medical and dental courses through NEET 2017. There were massive hiccups and major embarrassments, with the government being forced to start the process a fresh and the students and the parents creating a ruckus in front of the CM House.
The chief villain of the piece, of course, is the DME. The principal secretary of medical education department Gouri Singh, who is holding the charge of two departments, did not pay adequate attention to the issue. The DME Dr Ulka Shrivastava was appointed to the post a few months back and the commissioner, medical education Sheo Shekhar Shukla had taken over just a month back. Minister of State (Independent charge) of the department Sharad jain took no interest in the admission process.
The DME took irrational decisions. In 2016, the SC had directed that when the students fill in the NEET forms, they have to mention their domicile. After the national round, the merit list is forwarded to the state for giving admissions. But no change in domicile status is permitted.
Ignoring the SC order, the DME asked the candidates to fill in their domicile status afresh. That gave the non-domiciles an opportunity to make their way to the medical colleges in the state by claiming that they were residents of the state. Social activist Vinayak Parihar filed a petition in the High Court alleging that injustice was being done to state domiciles. The HC instructed the DME to follow the SC decision. Instead of accepting the HC orders, the DME and the government moved the SC in appeal, which upheld the HC orders and instructed to follow it strictly.
The entire exercise then began afresh and a scrutiny that followed led to the discovery that around 300 candidates from other states had managed to get admissions here. Things did not stop here. The DME again faltered while conducting counselling for the mop-up round. The students were given only 3-4 hours to reach the medical college concerned to take admissions from Bhopal – which was physically impossible. Furious parents and students staged an aggressive dharna at the Polytechnic Square. Additional director Dr Sashi Gandhi rushed to the spot and tried to pacify them but to no avail.
