Port Blair, Sept 1: Mr. Kuldeep Rai Sharma, Member of Parliament, A&N Islands has urged the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of India, New Delhi for opening of an examination centre at Port Blair for conducting NEET –PG examination from the year 2021, onwards since facilities for conducting such examinations are available at Port Blair. He informed the Minister that the lone medical college namely “Andaman and Nicobar Islands Institute of Medical Sciences (ANIIMS), Port Blair” in the UT of A&N Islands was established in the year 2015 and the annual intake of 100 seats of MBBS shall be passing out the first batch of MBBS qualified doctors by January- February 2021. Most of these passing out MBBS doctors will have ambition for pursuing Post Graduate medical courses for which they will have to appear and qualify in the National Eligibility Entrance Test for Post Graduate courses (NEET – PG). Beside first batch of passing out MBBS doctors from ANIIMS, there are around similar numbers of undergraduate (MBBS) doctors serving at various far flung Islands as Medical Officers in the Primary Health Centers, Community Health Centers and District Hospitals of Health department on regular and contractual basis and also as Junior Resident doctors in ANIIMS who with great difficulties are regularly appearing in the NEET – PG examination at various examination centres in different States. As such, on opening of NEET –PG centre at Port Blair, this will more convenient for the aspiring candidates to reduce their hardships such as saving of leave for the serving doctors, long journey, journey expenses saving of time, besides boarding and lodging etc for appearing the NEET PG Examination at the designated examination centres in mainland.
In this regard, he said that required facilities for conducting Online/ Computer Based Test (CBT) are already exists at Port Blair as the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) has been conducted the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) -2020 during February, 2020 which is an Online/Computer Based Test and around 170 candidates appeared in the Online/ Computer Based Test at Port Blair Centre by availing the infrastructure facilities exists at Dr. B R Ambedkar Institute of Technology, Port Blair. Similarly, the JEE Mains 2020 which is also an Online/ Computer Based Test scheduled to be conducted from 1st – 6th September 2020 by the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resources Development and more than 300 candidates are appearing for the entrance examination at Port Blair Centre with Dr. B R Ambedkar Institute of Technology, Port Blair being one of the major service facilitator.
Therefore, considering the difficulty being faced by the undergraduate doctors to move from their remote place of posting to the distantly located examination centres in mainland of India and in view of large increase in the number of candidates aspiring to appear in the NEET – PG examination due to first passing out of batch of MBBS doctors from the Medical College of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and also the Online/ Computer Based Test facilities available at Port Blair for conducting the examination, the Member of Parliament has requested the Health Minister to consider for opening of NEET – PG examination centre at Port Blair from the year 2021 onwards for admission to MD/MS/DNB post graduate and diploma medical courses across Medical Institutions in India.