AHMEDABAD: The National Testing Agency (NTA) published the results of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) on Friday, in which 36,398 or 56.16% of candidates from the state qualified. In all 64,719 candidates from the state had taken the medical entrance exam. Candidates from Gujarat fared better than last year when 46.35% of 75,889 students who took the exam qualified.
The exam was conducted on September 13 with strict precautions in view of Covid-19 in place. The NEET was earlier postponed twice due to the pandemic and the government decided to go ahead with it to mitigate any further academic trouble to students. A total of 7,71,500 candidates have qualified after 13.66 lakh candidates took the exam.
The final answer key for NEET 2020 was released by the NTA on Friday.
In the All India Rankings (AIR), two candidates from Gujarat are among the Top 50. Maanit Matravadia, a resident of Rajkot, ranked 10 in the AIR with a score of 710 out of 720 marks. Ahmedabad-based Ajinkya Naik ranked 42 with a score of 705.
Gujarat-based Krishna Chauhan secured an AIR of 2 in the PwD (female) category.
There are 15-20 candidates from Gujarat who scored 700 or more marks, sources said.
This year is likely to see tough competition among students with cut-off marks likely to be much higher than last year. Candidates who scored 588 marks last year ranked about 10,500. In comparison, this year a candidate with similar marks has ranked around 25,700. Similarly, a candidate who ranked at 97,000 position last year with 433 marks would presently rank 1,49,000 rank with the same marks.
The test was offered in 11 languages: English, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi and Tamil, among others.
After English and Hindi, students taking the exams in Gujarati were the highest in number this year, compared to other languages.
Based on initial reports, more than 77% of candidates took the test in English, around 13% in Hindi and about 4% in Gujarati.
There are about 5,400 medical seats, 1,200 dental seats, 3,600 Ayurveda seats and 3,300 homeopathy seats in Gujarat.