National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) was today smoothly conducted at eight facilitation centres across the State. Out of around 4841 students 4453 appeared in the test in the State marking an overall presence of 87.74%. The test was conducted by the Central Board of School Education (CBSE) throughout the country today.In Kashmir, out of 1740 students, 1621 appeared in the test at three designated centres at SP College Srinagar, Amar Singh College Srinagar and DPS Humhama marking an overall presence of 93%.In Jammu, out of around 3101 students, 2553 appeared in the test at five designated centres marking an overall presence of 82%.Pertinently, arrangements of transport and boarding and lodging were made by all the District Development Commissioners for the convenience of the students appearing in the test. Downloading facility for admit cards was also arranged by the respective DDCs at their offices across Kashmir.Minister for Education, Mr Naeem Akhtar today visited various examination centres in Srinagar to personally take stock of the arrangements made for the smooth conduct of the test.
The Minister was accompanied by Secretary Higher Education, Hemant Kumar, Director Colleges, Tariq Ahmad Kawoosa, Government of India Observers and CBSE representatives.The Minister was informed that out of 600 students, 555 appeared in the test at SP College Srinagar, out of 600 students, 571 appeared at Amar Singh College Srinagar and out of 540 students, 495 appeared at DPS Humhama.The Minister expressed gratitude to the CBSE authorities, the Divisional Administration, District Development Commissioners, District SSPs, respective college and school authorities and other concerned for facilitating smooth conduct of the test.Meanwhile, the Minister also reviewed the arrangements for counseling for the Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme (PMSSS), which will begin at Srinagar and Jammu simultaneously on 26 July 2016 from 9.00 am.In Kashmir, the counseling will be held at Amar Singh College, Srinagar while in Jammu, the counseling will be held at Government College for Women, Gandhi Nagar.
The list of the provisionally eligible candidates for PMSSS is available in the final merit list at AICTE website: http://www.aicteindia.org/downloads/JnK. The candidates have been asked to report at the respective Counseling Centres, one hour ahead of the scheduled time with all the requisite documents.The Minister said for the current financial year Rs 75 crore scholarships are available to J&K students under PMSSS and the number of supernumerary seats in the recognized engineering colleges across the country has been increased from two each to 10 each this year. He said in addition two seats each will be available in recognized Hotel Management Institutes and three seats each will be available in the Nursing Colleges across the country.The Minister said that only NBA (National Board of Accreditation) accredited colleges are available for admission as the State Government and the AICTE have worked out a fool-proof mechanism to ensure admission of the students only in the best colleges of the country under PMSSS. He said the role of the touts, who earlier misused the scheme and fleeced the students, has been completely done away with and the students will only get admission to recognized colleges through a genuine selection process.The Minister urged the students to join the counseling as per schedule to take advantage of the scheme.