Chennai/UNI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K.Stalin on Friday urged President Droupadi Murmu to accord assent to the Bill passed in the StateLegislative Assembly seeking to exempt Tamil Nadu from the purview of NEET exams and allow admissions for UG medical courses based on the marks secured in the Plus-2 board exams conducted by the State government.

Stalin handed over a letter to the President, who is in the city to attend the eight convocation of the Indian Maritime University, at the airport here.

In the letter, he requested her to accord the assent to the Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill, 2021.

Stalin drew her attention to the need to expedite the granting of assent to the Bill, which has been pending for the Presidential assent for more than a year.

Considering the fact that the NEET based medical selection process is against the students from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds, Tamil
Nadu has opted for the MBBS selection process through the Plus-2 marks.

"This process had served our State’s interests well in the past but had to be discontinued due to the Union Government’s introduction of NEET and subsequent changes in Union legislations," he added.

The Chief Minister said to address this issue, the ‘Tamil Nadu Admission to Under Graduate Medical Degree Courses Bill, 2021’ was passed by the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly on September 13, 2021 based on the recommendations of the Committee headed by Justice A.K. Rajan and
various discussions and sent to the Governor on September 18, 2021.

Since it was returned by the Governor after five months of delay, it was reintroduced in the Assembly on February 8, 2022 and was passed again
after reconsideration and sent again to the Governor for reserving the same to Presidential assent, Stalin pointed out.

Stating that the Bill has been forwarded by the Governor to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and is pending for assent, he said all the clarifications sought on the Bill by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs based on the comments of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (on June 21, 2022), Department of Higher Education, MoE (August 26,.2022 and May 15, 2023) and Ministry of Ayush (January 13, .2023) have been provided expeditiously.

"Since there had been no progress after our replies, in my letter dated August 14, 2023, I had highlighted the various adverse impacts due to
this delay like the lost opportunities for the underprivileged students and many student suicides and had urged you to grant the assent without any
further delay,"he said.

The latest queries from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare have also been replied, Stalin said and noted that but unfortunately, the assent to our Bill has not been provided till now.

"In this scenario, I once again wish to reiterate that the inordinate delay in granting assent to our Bill has deprived medical admissions for many
deserving students who could not afford costly coaching facilities and has effectively stalled the intent of the broad legislative, political and social
consensus in Tamil Nadu", the Chief Minister said.

"I, therefore, solicit your kind and immediate intervention in this sensitive issue and urge you to accord the assent to the above Bill at the earliest",
he said.