GHAR - WAPSI 

It has been a long waiting for the desired uproar, for someone to say ' go no further '. But the trampling needed some sort of a climax or rather an anticlimax for people to say enough is enough.

After the Apex Court's order of NO RE-NEET, the next all important question is whether NEET or the NTA is actually needed ?.

During our Government Science College Jabalpur days, when I was doing B.Sc. First Year, selection to MBBS Course was done by a State conducted Pre Medical Test for the six Government Medical Colleges of Madhya Pradesh located at Bhopal, Gwalior, Indore, Jabalpur, Raipur and Rewa. There were no private medical colleges in the state then. This was replaced by an All India Pre Medical Test ( AIPMT ) and later by a National Entrance Examination Test ( NEET ). In between, the Government of India decided to do away with the Medical Council of India ( MCI ) and replace it by National Medical Commission ( NMC ). The entire exercise was presumably meant to encourage medical education for the poor and underprivileged, who could not afford capitation fees. Although the fee structure then was the prerogative of the state governments, still private medical colleges did not let go ' capitation fees ' completely and handled admissions through cash transactions. In southern states such as Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, where there are a large number of private medical colleges there was substantial resistance to NEET as most of these private medical colleges were managed by politicians, who used their clout to get permission to open more private medical colleges under the garb of acute shortage of doctors. The sorry state of affairs has since then assumed such huge proportions that the number of medical seats in such colleges has doubled in 2024 when compared to 2014, and the management quota fees increased by a whopping 5 - 10 times on a yearly basis.

After elaborating on both, government and private medical colleges in general and the management of Medical Education in particular, whoever said that administrative control is all about striking the right balance would not be surprised and couldn't be truer.

The MCI was abolished by the Government of India alleging corruption, irregularities and malpractices in Medical Education and replaced by National Medical Commission, whose performance in recent times has been no better.

Under these circumstances if a demand for reverting back to the old system and abolishing NEET and NTA in the near future arise, it wouldn't be surprising, aka GHAR - wapsi.