Burkha & kirpan to be allowed in NEET from next year

NEW DELHI: ‘Hijab’, ‘burkha’, ‘kara’ and ‘kirpan’ will be allowed in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-UG to be conducted on May 3, 2020. However, candidates wearing such dresses or carrying metallic items will have to report at the designated centres at least an hour before the gate closing time.

In case candidates wear anything in deviation of the dress code or carry any assistive devices for medical reasons, they will be required to take prior approval before admit cards are issued. This and many other measures — artificial intelligence to detect attempts of impersonation/fraud, uploading of additional ‘postcard size’ photograph and Class X and XII roll numbers and certificates — are being put in place by the National Testing Agency (NTA) as the registration process for the medical/dental entrance test gets underway on Monday.

NEET-UG also gets bigger this time with the eight functioning All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and the Jawaharlal Institute of Post-graduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Puducherry, joining. NEET-UG 2020 will be conducted in 11 languages and for the first time, the information bulletin will be made available in all these languages.


While candidates will be allowed to wear customary/cultural dresses like hijab, burkha, kirpan, the NTA has introduced some rules as well. The exam will begin at 2 pm and the gates will close at 12:30 pm.