Rajasthan boy tops NEET, Barnala’s Keshav seventh

Rajasthan’s Mahesh Kumar secured All-India Rank 1 while Utkarsh Awadhiya from Madhya Pradesh bagged the second rank in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2025, whose results were declared by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Saturday.

Among females, Avika Aggarwal from Delhi (NCT) topped the medical entrance exam by bagging the fifth rank. Barnala’s Keshav Mittal and Karnal’s Arsh Gandhi made their respective states proud by securing AIR 7 and 11, respectively. The list of 100 toppers include 14 from Delhi, 11 from Rajasthan, seven from Punjab, two from Haryana and one from Chandigarh.

A total of 22.09 lakh candidates took the NEET(UG) on May 4, of which 12.36 lakh qualified the exam — 7.2 lakh females and 5.14 lakh males. Among the qualifying candidates are 529 foreign nationals, 405 NRIs and 606 OCI card holders.

The highest number of qualified candidates are from Uttar Pradesh (over 1.70 lakh), followed by Maharashtra (1.25 lakh) and Rajasthan (1.19 lakh). Of the 28,407 students from Punjab who appeared in the medical entrance exam, 16,104 qualified, a marginal increase from last year’s figure of 15,707.

There are 1.08 lakh MBBS seats available in the country and of these, 56,000 are in government colleges and 52,000 in private ones. In Delhi, there are 1,092 medical seats in seven government medical colleges.

NEET was last year plagued by several allegations of irregularities, including paper leaks, and litigation, UGC-NET was cancelled after reports that the integrity of the exam had been compromised. Both matters are being probed by the CBI. The Centre had in July last year set up a panel to ensure transparent, smooth and fair conduct of examinations by NTA.

India