The 2020 NEET Dental College admission threshold has been revised for BDS admission. The Supreme Court recently called for a resolution to reduce the approval deadline for BDS by 10 percentage points for the 2020-2021 academic year.
According to the Terms of Reference, General Category applicants who achieved a 40th percentile in NEET 2020 are eligible for admission to the BDS program offered in dental schools. The percentile requirement for applicants belonging to the reserved categories (SC / ST / OBC) has also been revised to 30 percentiles, while the threshold for persons with disabilities has also been revised to 35 percentiles.
The tribunal of Supreme Court justices L Nageswara Rao and Krishna Murari, in delivering the verdict, said that the regulation of Indian dental schools was sufficient to lower the threshold of students. The court order also found that the center’s opposition to lowering the threshold requirements was not justified.
Indian dental schools had proposed in a letter dated December 2020 to reduce the threshold requirements by 20%, which was rejected by the central government. The central government said in its argument that there is no reason to lower the limit as there are a sufficient number of candidates available.
Also read: NEET 2020 stray round list of eligible candidates released at mcc.nic.in
Approximately 7.71 lakh applicants scored the 2020 NEET exams for the 91,367 MBBS seats, 26,949 BDS seats and 52,720 AYUSH seats offered at universities across the country. The government argued that qualified students left BDS positions because they were unwilling to pay the high costs of private medical schools and students were more inclined to MBBS programs.
The central government had also argued that, given the current rate, the country had a good ratio of 1: 6080 dentists per person, which was better than the WHO rules of 1: 7500. The ratio of places available to eligible students is 1: 4.5 instead of 7, which is the acceptable level. The court also decided to lower the limit, warning that a reasonable number of dentists and mail carriers, including students who did not opt for BDS seats due to high fees, were not relevant and that the decision to lower the limit could not influence. Therefore, the court annulled the central government orders of December 2020 and allowed the limit value to be lowered.
The reduced cap applies to the 2020-2021 academic year, and the 2021 NEET cap is expected to remain the same at 50 percentiles. The revision notice for 2021 is expected to be published soon on the official website.
