NEET in Kannada? State insists on it

Kalaburagi: With the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development deciding to hold  the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) for medical institutes in regional languages in 2017, the state is strongly pressurizing the Centre to allow NEET be conducted in Kannada language as well.

Doubts
In the wake of doubts expressed in some quarters that aspirants seeking admission to medical colleges would find it difficult to crack the NEET 2016 medical exam if the exam was held only in English, the Centre has decided to hold the NEET in six vernacular languages which included Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Assamese. However, Kannada, which is an important regional language, has been left out of the list.

Stating that Kannada is an important ancient language, which has won eight Jnanpeeth awards, Minister for Medical Education Dr Sharanprakash Patil regretted that it has been left out of the list already announced. “We have written to the Centre and are pursuing the matter”, he added.

To a query Dr Patil replied that there were proposals before the state Cabinet to establish six more government medical colleges. Already the Congress government led by Siddaramaiah has established seven medical colleges since coming to power in 2004.

Dr Patil expressed his disappointment over the functioning of the ESI Hospital in the city. 

“The hospital has been established here with huge investments, but it is not getting necessary support from the Centre. We will urge the Ministry concerned to pay proper attention to its running,” the Medical Education Minister said.