Thank you, Chairman Sir,

The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2024 seeks to curb
down unfair means such as malpractices, leakage of question papers, organised
malpractices etc. committed during recruitment examination and entrance
examination such as NEET, JEE etc.

Sometimes I ask myself what is the need of such entrance exams like NEET.

Once, Dr. Ambedkar said

“Examination is something quite different from education, but in the name of
raising the standard of education, they are making the examinations so
impossible and so severe that the backward communities which have hitherto
not had the chance of entering the portals of University are absolutely kept
out”.

NEET’s introduction has brought Dr. Ambedkar’s fear into life. Under the garb
of raising the quality of education, they made it impossible, if not, close to
impossible for backward communities and poor people to study medical
education. The Medical Education for these people is not only inaccessible but
unfulfillable fantasy.

NEET has become a booming business for coaching centers which capitalize
upon the students dreaming to become doctors, which only affluent people can
afford. In India, NEET coaching centers are generating income around Rs. 5000
crores annually which shows that the coaching centers are an industry itself.

This has forced the poor and downtrodden people to take extreme steps such as
resorting to malpractices, and some students commit suicide out of frustration
and realization that their dream of becoming a doctor will never be achieved.
Till now in state of Tamil Nadu, NEET has taken lives of 16 students by
shattering their dreams.

Instances of malpractices in NEET, including impersonation, aiding other

candidates directly or indirectly, and attempting to communicate with others,
have become increasingly common. Unlike the HSc, which has a track record
free of fraudulence, the NEET appears to have heightened the risk of
impersonation due to the absence of a robust mechanism to prevent such
practices.

Why can’t the government allow the states to opt out from NEET, they can give
an option for states to adopt but it should not brow beat the states for
implementing it.
Whenever the issue regarding NEET is raised in the parliament, either we get no
response or we evasive reply. In fact, I have raised a parliamentary question
dated Feb 6, whether government has considered exempting NEET for state of
Tamil Nadu and whether any report has been sought with regards to NEET
exemption. To my shock, there was no response, not even a “no”.

Which is contrary Rule 12 of Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in

Rajya Sabha where it clearly stated that an answer should be specific and
complete.

When Minister can’t give answers, how do you expect students to answer the
question.

I have also introduced a Private Member bill seeking to grant exemption to

states from opting out of NEET and which will we taken up for consideration in
this session.

Coming back to this bill, malpractices should be prevented at any cost.

However, there are certain provisions which need clarification and
reconsideration.

 Government constitutes a committee to examine all these malpractices

under this bill. The bill emphasis to centralise authority at the disposal of
union government. Representatives from State government should be
added in these committees and consultations has to be conducted with
state governments.

 The Bill's implementation might require significant financial and human

resources, raising concerns about its practicality and effectiveness,
especially in rural areas.
 People are using malpractices using modern technologies such as walkie-
talkie, earphones, ChatGPT, etc. This government can consider using fool
proof technology, which can be used to release question papers
 Statement and object of the bill mentions that bill tries to curb
malpractices in public examinations lead to delays and cancellation of
examinations. However, if an examination is cancelled because of a
malpractice, that batch of students have to wait for a very long period.
They studied for this tough examination for years. But now they have to
indefinitely wait for the Government to come up with a new set of
examination for them. It is important that timeline should be given for
conducting Re-examination, there are instances where re-examination
were conducted after a year.
 Accountability of officers who conduct the exam should be defined
properly. Further, involvement of those people who are sitting at the
higher level should be investigated and an appropriate penal action should
be taken.