New Delhi: 1. Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in 1987 suo moto decided to award the work of holding the Medical entrance examination for 15% All India Quota seats to the CBSE. Since then CBSE has been holding medical entrance examination for 15% All India Quota seats and later on as per the directives of Hon’ble Supreme Court of India and as per All India Medical Council Act, 1956 and the Dentist Act, 1948 as amended in 2017, CBSE is holding National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (UG) for 100% seats of MBBS/BDS in the country.
2. Through this examination, Govt. of India has taken an initiative to curb malpractices in the admission of MBBS & BDS.
3. The increase in number of candidates who apply for these entrance examinations in past 05 years is as follows:
| EXAM | NO. OF CANDIDATES |
| AIPMT – 2015 | 6,32,625 |
| NEET 2016 (PHASE – I) | 6,67,637 |
| NEET 2016 (PHASE – II) | 4,38,867 |
| NEET- 2017 | 11,38,888 |
| NEET – 2018 | 13,26,725 |
4. These examinations are conducted by CBSE in a highly controlled and sanitized environment, to ensure that the benefit of the examination is passed on only to the genuine and ethical candidates. Therfore, the Board selects its centers very carefully and lays down strict norms for the candidates.
5. As per directives of the Hon’ble Court to ensure free and fair conduct of AIPMT, CBSE framed Dress Code and Barred electronic items, communication devices and other such items in the exam centers. The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India also decided one PIL on dress code in favour of CBSE’s guidelines.
6. Efforts are also made to provide the best suitable environment to the candidates for appearing in the examination and therefore, not only the cities but the examination centres are also being increased to accommodate more and more candidates near to their home places. Some of the vital statistics in this regard is as follows:
| Year | No. of Cities | No. of Centres |
| 2015 | 53 | 971 |
| 2016 (Phase – I) | 52 | 1040 |
| 2016 (Phase- II) | 56 | 739 |
| 2017 | 103 | 1921 |
| 2018 | 136 | 2255 |
| % increase from 2015 | 156% | 132% |
7. In the year 2018, CBSE has taken following measures to conduct the NEET (UG) successfully:
● Pen was provided by CBSE to all the candidates
● More than 4000 observers were deputed across the country at centres to oversee the examination.
● About 700 Board’s officials were deputed in all 136 cities to control the examination at local level.
● It is not out of place to mention here that the entire work of evaluation of Class X &XII was slowed down as all the officials of the CBSE were sent to conduct the NEET (UG) examination.
● For this examination, nearly 56000 rooms were arranged in 2255 centres.
● Nearly 2,00,000 persons were deputed by the schools for the conduct of NEET (UG).
● 153 City Coordinators were appointed in the cities of examination to coordinate with the centres in the city.
● Nearly 15000 police persons were deputed at examination centres with the help of State Police Department.
● Candidates were informed about the rules and regulations, conduct in examination etc everyday by sending SMS to individual candidate. Accordingly, nearly 1.33 crore SMS were sent to the candidates. Further, their parents were also communicated through various modes requesting them to ensure that their ward is following the instructions issued by CBSE.
● More than 1,00,000 SMS and 30,000 mails were sent to centres on different issues, so that they can hold the examination successfully.
● A Radio Programme was also organized to make the candidates aware about the last minute preparations and action to be taken by the candidates, so that they are reaching the centre on time.
● A capacity building program through Web Radio was organized for all 2255 centres informing them about the preparations to be made at the centre.
● Nearly 12000 metal detectors were used to frisk candidates.
● Communication Jammers were installed at the centres across the country to ensure that communication devices are not being used.
● The entire examination was videographed by deputing about 3700 videographers.
8. NEET (UG) is the only professional examination in which the question paper for Physics, Chemistry and Biology is administered in 09 regional languages other than Hindi & English. The details of language wise candidates in 2018 are as given:
| LANGUAGE | NO. OF CANDIDATES |
| HINDI | 146542 |
| ENGLISH | 1060923 |
| GUJARATI | 57299 |
| MARATHI | 1169 |
| ORIYA | 279 |
| BENGALI | 27437 |
| ASSAMESE | 3,848 |
| TELUGU | 1979 |
| TAMIL | 24720 |
| KANNADA | 818 |
| URDU | 1711 |
| TOTAL | 13,26,725 |
9. To ensure that candidates are accommodated near to their home, not only schools affiliated to CBSE but the other institutions were also fixed as the centre as per following details:-details:-
| Affiliated To CBSE | 1605 |
| Kendriya Vidyalaya | 234 |
| Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya | 01 |
| Eng College | 75 |
| ICSC | 02 |
| Higher Education Colleges | 150 |
| Pharmacy Colleges | 02 |
| State Board | 186 |
| TOTAL | 2255 |
10. The news about ,a case where a child from Tamil Nadu claimed that he had been forced to go to Udaipur center by CBSE was wrong, because his online application records show that the child had himself opted for Udaipur as an option for exam center. Similarly, news about depriving Tamil Nadu candidates of attempting question paper in Tamil. was also wrong. In fact, all candidates, who had opted Tamil as medium were given centres within Tamil Nadu, and were given question papers in Tamil.
In 4 out of 2255 centers in India, during the conduct of examination, when it came to notice that the medium of Question paper was not correct for the candidates, CBSE immediately responded by providing them question paper in the language of their choice.
11. CBSE has been successful in conducting these high stakes exams largely due to the cooperation of the student and parent community through the years.
12. The media has also unconditionally supported the Board’s initiatives to curb the menace of adoption of unfair means by candidates.
13. CBSE shall continue to endeavor to strengthen these exams further every year and bring in as much facilitation for the students as possible for taking these exams, and also for ensuring fairness, transparency, authenticity and sanctity of NEET exams.
