Chennai, Oct 29: In a surprise move, the State government issued a Government Order (GO) on Thursday, providing 7.5 per cent reservation in all medical and dental courses for students who studied in the State government schools and had qualified in the NEET from the academic year 2020-21.
Though the Bill on the same issue has been pending clearance with the Governor Banwarilal Purohit, turning it into a political issue in the State with the Opposition blaming the ruling party of not being serious on getting the 7.5 per cent reservation for poor students, the government has gone ahead and implemented the reservation through the GO.
The GO referred to the announcement made by the Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami in the State Assembly under Rule 110 on March 21, 2020, the report of former High Court judge P Kalaiarasan and the opinion of the Advocate General and directed the head honchos of the various medical education boards to take appropriate action.
Thus, students from government schools would be able to avail of the preferential quota from this year itself in not only MBBS and BDS courses but also other branches of medicine like Siddha, Ayurveda, Unani and Homeopathy, putting aside the fears expressed earlier that the Governor’s dilly dally might lead to the reservation coming into force only from the next academic year.
The issue had taken a political turn when the DMK organized a massive rally in front of Raj Bhavan after the party president M K Stalin directly wrote to the Governor urging him to give his accent to the Bill passed unanimously in the Assembly.
The DMK also made use of the opportunity to blame the ruling AIADMK for not putting enough pressure on the Governor to sign the Bill. The opposition parties had threatened to put pressure continuously on the Governor through protests.
However, Thursday’s GO took the wind out of the opposition’s sail and also ensured that students from Government schools could avail of the facility from this year onwards.
