HYDERABAD: In a first, 87 social and tribal welfare residential students qualified in the NEET this year. As many as 63 students are likely to get MBBS seats and 24 may get BDS seats. The sons and the daughters of sweepers, roadside tea sellers, daily wagers, vegetable vendors and auto-rickshaw drivers studying in social and tribal welfare residential institutions, braving abject poverty and deprivation, did not lose sight of their dreams and came out with flying colours.
Jathroth Naveen Kumar, son of a tribal worker, who secured All India 210 rank in ST category, said he had always wanted to become a doctor. “Getting into a medical college was all I had dreamt in my life but my economic conditions would not have permitted me to crack a national level competitive examination like NEET, had it not been for the special coaching we received,” said the student of Tribal Welfare Centre of Excellence, Rajendra Nagar.
Jathroth aspires to become a cardiologist and serve the poor in villages and tribal areas. L Sai Kishore, another ranker from TSWRS Gowlidoddi, who secured All India 767 rank in SC category, said, “My parents couldn’t afford medical coaching in private corporate institutions, but the free long-term medical coaching that was provided by the college enabled me to get a good rank. My dream is to become an infectious disease specialist so that I can work among rural masses”.
Jathroth and Kishore were coached under Operation Emerald programme and Operation Blue Crystal Programme respectively, the flagship coaching courses of the TSWREIS and TTWREIS initiated to provide free long-term intensive medical coaching to SC and ST children.
“What makes their feat extraordinary is that these students are from the poorest of poor communities. Performance has been great this year with 87 students making their way into medical colleges, including students from remote tribal hamlets,” said Dr RS Praveen Kumar, secretary. Taking a cue from the TSWREIS and TTWREIS, this year government junior colleges and BC welfare residential colleges also gave short-term coaching to their students, but of the 400 students trained for 45 days, a dismal 10 have aced NEET. Students of BC welfare colleges on the other hand have fared better — of the 40 who were given 40-day coaching, 15 students have qualified. Avinash from Warangal with 452 (out of 720) is the top scorer and among the girls, Pranitha from Sangareddy, who scored 252 marks is the topper.
Kadiyam submits report to Prakash Javadekar
Deputy Chief Minister Kadiyam Srihari, who is the chairman of the CABE committee on girls education, submitted a report to Union Minister for Human Resource Prakash Javadekar in Delhi on Tuesday. He said that issues like girls education, their educational target are some of the issues that the report deals with. Srihari also raised the demand for increasing the budgetary allocation to `7.50 crore.