Chennai: Creating a record of sorts, for the first time a student from Tamil Nadu emerged as all India topper in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), results of which were announced late on Tuesday night by the National Testing Agency (NTA).
There was more cheers for Tamil Nadu, as in another first, four students from the State finished among the top ten.
In a release NTA said Prabanjan.J from Tamil Nadu topped the NEET-2023 with a total of 99.99 per cent, scoring 720 out of 720 marks and the rank will be decided by NTA's tie breaking regulations.
While Kaustav Bauri bagged 3rd rank, Surya Siddharth scored 6th and Varun stood 9th, as the students among the top ten for the first time.
Sharing the top spot with Prabanjan was Bora Varun Chakravarthi from Andhra Pradesh who too secured 99.99 per cent having secured 720 out of 720 marks and the rank will be decided by NTA's tie breaking regulations.
A total of 1.44 lakh students appeared for exams from the State and over 78,000 students cleared it, which was yet another record.
It is to be noted that the maximum number of candidates qualified from Uttar Pradesh, followed by Maharashtra and Rajasthan.
More than 20 lakh students had appeared for the examination across the country, of which a record high of 1,47,581 students from Tamil Nadu had appeared for the examination on May 7.
More than 8.9 lakh students had qualified for NEET in 2022.
This year NTA conducted NEET-UG for 20,87,462 candidates in 4,097 centres in 499 cities throughout the country, including 14 cities outside India.
The medical entrance exam was conducted in the State of Manipur for 8,753 candidates at 34 centres located in 11 cities on the request of that Government on June 6.
The examination was conducted in 13 languages (Assamese, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu).
The exams were also conducted outside India in Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, Colombo, Doha, Kathmandu, Kuala Lumpur, Lagos, Manama, Muscat, Riyadh, Sharjah, Singapore along with Dubai and Kuwait City.
The NTA release said seven candidates were identified using unfair practices in the examination.
The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) will conduct the counselling for 15% All India quota seats, deemed universities, Central Universities, seats of ESIC and AFMC, BHU and AMU. (UNI)
