Around 1.45 lakh students from the state had registered for the exam, of which around 1.40 lakh appeared, recording an attendance rate of 96.39%.

Bengaluru: Following the controversy over alleged paper leak in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), Higher Education Minister MC Sudhakar urged the Center and Supreme Court Decentralizing the examination process and allowing states to conduct NEET independently.Around 1.45 lakh students from the state had registered for the exam, of which around 1.40 lakh appeared, recording an attendance rate of 96.39%.“The Karnataka legislature has passed a resolution to cancel NEET and allow states to conduct these examinations so that such disruptions do not happen. There should be a serious debate on this. They should file an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying that we have failed to conduct the examination and centralized examination is not possible in this country. Now the time has come that the state should take the responsibility of conducting the examination.“There should be a separate exam for All India Quota like before. As a centralized system, we look at it.” NTA has been violated. The biggest concern is that only NEET exam is considered for admission to MBBS. If we also consider the Class 12 exam, this pressure will reduce.Min demanded action against coaching centersMeanwhile, Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Patil criticized the Center and demanded the resignation of the Union Education Minister. He said, “For the last four-five years, irregularities in NEET have been coming to light again and again. The BJP government at the Center is entirely responsible for this mess. The Prime Minister should stop giving grand speeches and instead provide immediate solutions. The person who hosts ‘Pariksha Pe Charcha’ should be the first to resolve the chaos in this exam.”Patil expressed concern over the mental well-being of students preparing diligently for the exam. “Conducting the exams again is injustice to the honest students. It causes immense stress and hardship to them and their families,” he said.He called for strict regulatory action against coaching centers indulging in such malpractices and urged the Center to break the nexus between coaching industries and examination authorities.School Education Minister Madhu Bangarappa expressed concern about the burden on students. He said, “We are making continuous efforts to reduce the academic and mental stress of children at the school level. However, such irresponsible decisions of the Central Government are pushing children and parents into the pit of despair.”Various student organizations also demanded decentralization of the examination. “By taking away the autonomy of the states and centralizing the entire medical admission process into a single window controlled by the NTA, the government has created a single-point failure system. This structure makes it easy for organized mafias to ruin the future of millions of people in one fell swoop. We demand the scrapping of the NTA and bringing back state-level common entrance examinations immediately. Alternatively, we advocate the return of transparent, competency-based counseling conducted at the state level based on Class 12 results,” said Mahesh SG, secretary, AISEC All India Save Education Committee.