Maharashtra: NEET cut-off jumps, medical admissions to get tougher

MUMBAI: Nashik’s Sarthak Bhat topped the state in NEET -UG 2019 with an all-India rank of 6 (695 out of 720 marks). Disha Agrawal (AIR 52) was No. 1 among girls in Maharashtra. The results of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, meant for medical and dental college admissions, were announced on Wednesday.

Nalin Khandelwal from Rajasthan bagged the first rank in the country with a score of 701, the best-ever figure since NEET was restored in 2016.Delhi’s Bhavik Bansal and UP’s Askhat Kaushik stood second and third with 700 marks. Last year, the top score was 691. Madhuri Reddy from Telangana was the topper among girls in India, with an AIR 7. In a first for any test in India, geo-fencing was used in NEET to deliver papers without any leaks.
Of the 14.1 lakh students who took the exam last month, 56.5% qualified. If absolute numbers are taken into account, Maharashtra had the second highest pool of qualifying candidates in the country after Uttar Pradesh. However, if percentages are considered, only 39.26% students qualified, leaving the state among the bottom four along with Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland. Delhi, Haryana, Chandigarh and Andhra Pradesh were the top performers. With around 2.07 lakh students, Maharashtra had the highest numbers of testtakers.
The cut-off score for qualifying in the open category jumped by 15 marks, which means admissions to the over 1 lakh medical and dental seats in the country are likely to get tougher this year. Last year, students scoring 119 and above were eligible for medical admissions, this year the cut-off is 134—students who have scored 50 percentile or more. In Maharashtra, 81,171 students qualified.