Admission to Ayush undergrad courses through NEET from 201819

NEW DELHI: Students applying for undergraduate courses in Ayush (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) systems will now be required to take the National Eligibility-cum-entrance Test (NEET) for admission.

The ministry of Ayush plans to implement NEET for alternative medical systems at the undergraduate level from the academic session 2018-19. For its postgraduate courses, the ministry started admitting students through NEET from last year.

“We started selection through NEET for our postgraduate courses last year. From the coming academic session, however, we will have NEET for undergraduate courses too,” said Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, secretary, ministry of Ayush.

The ministry is in talks with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to conduct the examination. “Ideally, we would like CBSE to conduct the examination as it does for MBBS/BDS entrance, but there are certain regulatory issues that need to be sorted,” he said. “It will be convenient for the aspirants if CBSE conducts it, but in case they are unable to, we will still go ahead with the implementation.”

Close to 36,000 seats are available under the Ayush system for various undergraduate courses, and for which state universities conduct entrance examination individually.

“We want to bring it under one roof to maintain quality of students,” Kotecha said.