On Monday, the newly-appointed Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced the exam date of NEET-UG 2021. The exam will be held on September 12, 2021 and the application process will begin on July 13, 2021 from 5 pm onwards.
“The NEET (UG) 2021 will be held on 12th September 2021 across the country following COVID-19 protocols. The application process will begin from 5 pm tomorrow through the NTA website(s). (sic),” the Minister wrote on Twitter.
In order to ensure social distancing norms, the number of cities where the examination will be conducted has been increased from 155 to 198 and the number of examination centres will also be increased from the 3862 centres used in 2020. “To ensure adherence to COVID-19 protocols, face mask will be provided to all candidates at the centre. Staggered time slots during entry and exit, contactless registration, proper sanitisation, seating with social distancing etc. will also be ensured,” the minister said.
In view of the huge spike in Covid-19 cases, lakhs of medical aspirants have been demanding the postponement of the NEET-UG 2021. Students have said that the conduct of physical examination in the current situation is unfair and NTA had announced postponing the NEET UG 2021 examination to September. The exam was scheduled to be held on August 1, 2021.
Also, several students have also suggested that the NEET UG exam should be conducted twice or thrice this year, just like the JEE Main 2021 examination. However, NTA later clarified that the medical entrance exam will only be conducted once this year.
The examination in physical mode was conducted in September 2020 after being postponed multiple times.
The NEET UG 2021 is an entrance examination for admission to medical courses like MBBS, BDS, BAMS, BSMS, BUMS and BHMS. The official website of NEET UG 2021 is neet.nta.nic.in. Candidates are advised to keep a track of updates for the exam on the website.
