Context: Recently, Union Health Ministry has announced a 27% quota for OBCs and 10% reservation for the Economically Weaker Section category in the All-India Quota scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate medical and dental courses from the current academic year. 
Background

• Until 2007, no reservation was implemented within the All India Quota for medical admission. 
• On January 31, 2007, in Abhay Nath v University of Delhi and Others, the Supreme Court directed that reservation of 15% for Scheduled Castes and 7.5% for Scheduled Tribes be introduced in the AIQ.
• All India Quota consists of 15% of total available UG seats and 50% of total available PG seats in government medical colleges. 
• Initially, there was no reservation in AIQ Scheme up to 2007. In 2007, the Supreme Court introduced reservation of 15% for SCs and 7.5% for STs in the AIQ Scheme.
• In the last six years, MBBS seats in the country have increased by 56%, from 54,348 seats in 2014 to 84,649 seats in 2020, and the number of PG seats by 80%, from 30,191seats in 2014 to 54,275 seats in 2020. 
• In the same period, 179 new medical colleges have been established and now the country has 558 (govt 289, pvt. 269) medical colleges.

Key Benefits

• This will immensely help thousands of our youth every year get better opportunities and create a new paradigm of social justice in our country.
• According to the government, the decision would benefit nearly 1,500 OBC students in MBBS and 2,500 OBC students in postgraduation and also around 550 EWS students in MBBS and around 1,000 EWS students in postgraduation.

Need

• For undergraduates' reservation is required because people from rural areas find it very difficult to compete in NEET Exams. So some equality must be provided in form of reservation

About NEET

• The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) is the entrance examination for entry to all undergraduate (NEET-UG) and postgraduate (NEET-PG) medical and dental courses in the country.
• Until 2016, the All India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) was the national-level entrance examination for medical colleges, while state governments used to hold separate entrance tests for seats that were not contested at an all-India level. NEET was held for the first time in 2003, but discontinued the following year.
• On April 13, 2016, the Supreme Court upheld the newly inserted section 10-D of the Indian Medical Council Act, which provides for a uniform entrance examination to all medical educational institutions at undergraduate level and postgraduate level in Hindi, English and various other languages.
• Since then, NEET has been the uniform entrance test for medical courses across the country. It was conducted by the CBSE initially, and has been conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) since 2018. In 2020, 15.97 lakh students appeared for NEET (UG) on September 13, 2020. This year, NEET is scheduled on September 11 (UG) and 12 (PG).

Note: While the government has announced its decision, the NEET information booklet on the NTA website reads: “The reservation to OBC candidates in State surrendered seats under All India Quota from the academic session 2021-22 shall be subject to the outcome of the (Saloni Kumari) case pending before the Hon’ble Supreme Court.”

By: Shubham Tiwari