5% who cleared NEET to get seats in state’s med colleges

Guwahati: A little over five per cent of the candidates from Assam, who cracked NEET-UG this year, will have the fortune of securing an MBBS seat in the nine medical colleges in the state. The acute shortage of seats will force most of them to seek admissions in private colleges outside the northeast or to settle for a course that may have been their second choice.
Assam’s nine medical colleges, all run by the government, have 1,030 (85%) of the total 1,200 MBBS seats for intake from the state merit list. The rest (170) are reserved for the central quota of 15%.
The state has seen a remarkable improvement in the NEET-UG success rate from 46% in 2021 to 51% this year. At 54.72%, Manipur has recorded the best success rate among the seven northeastern states.
“We will be filling up 85% of the total MBBS seats, including the reserved and general category ones, in the government-run medical colleges from the state merit list. Though the number of succesful candidates has gone up, the percentage of reservation for the central list and state list remains unchanged,” Anup Kumar Das, controller of examinations in the Assam directorate of medical education (DME), said.
A DME official said the four-phase counselling session is likely to begin in October. “Soon after the first round of counselling, MBBS classes are likely to start from October itself,” the official said.
Assam saw the highest number of NEET-UG candidates (33,143) in the northeast this year. Out of them, 17,027 cracked the all-India medical entrance exam. Both the number of candidates who appeared and qualified from the state have also gone up from last year’s 23,648 (appeared) and 11,052 (qualified). However, the success rate of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland – three other NE states that had much lower attendance, has been better than that of Assam.