Hundreds of candidates successful in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admissions to medical and dental programmes and colleges across the country, have been spending time, money and energy desperately seeking admission to colleges in various states of the country. Lack of a uniform domicile policy could put an end to their dreams to pursue fulfilling careers in medicine or dentistry.

While some states like Maharashtra and Punjab have barred candidates from other states from participating in counselling for admission to medical colleges (both private and government), Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka have no such restrictions.

The domicile policy puts students from states with few medical colleges at a disadvantage.

NEET rules say that candidates wishing to apply for admission in state medical colleges or universities or institutes using merit list of NEET-2017 have to follow the instructions of the state government or that of the authorities of the medical and dental colleges or university/institutes concerned for counselling.

States can reserve 85% seats for their students in government medical colleges and leave the 15% quota for students from across the country ranking high on the NEET merit list. There is no provision for any reservation in private medical colleges across the country in NEET rules.