NEW DLEHI: Three candidates — Delhi’s Tanmay Gupta, Mrinal Kutteri from Telangana and Maharashtra girl Karthika G Nair — scored a perfect 720 to be declared joint toppers of this year’s National Eligibility-cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to undergraduate medical courses, according to results announced by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Monday night.

In all, 8,70,074 (56.34%) of the 15,44,275 candidates who appeared for the test qualified. In continuation of the trend in the past, the number of female candidates who qualified is 1.19 lakh higher than male candidates.

NTA has not used age as tie-breaker for announcing the ranking for candidates scoring identical marks in all three subjects— biology, chemistry and physics. Thus there are three No 1 All-India rank holders while there are 12 candidates who were placed at rank 5 as they scored 715 and have identical marks in all the three subjects as well. However, after the three No 1 rank holders, the next candidate was ranked 4th. Two candidates each have been ranked 17th and 19th.

Thus, the top 20 candidates share five All-India rankings (1, 4, 5, 17 and 19). Of them, three each are from Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, two each from Delhi, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and one each from Bihar, Kerala, West Bengal, Punjab, Gujarat and Haryana.

NEET-UG 2021 was conducted on September 12 and it recorded one of the highest attendance in five years, as 95.63% of 16.14 lakh aspirants took the test. Last time, the medical entrance recorded 94% attendance in 2017 when 11.38 lakh were registered, while in 2018 it recorded an all-time high of 97%.

Two cases of impersonation have been detected so far and three Covid-positive candidates were allowed to take the exam in isolation in Kerala.

The range of qualifying marks this year dropped as compared to last year. While the range of qualifying marks for General and EWS category had been set at 720-138 as against 720-147 in 2020, the cut-off for OBC, SC and ST came down to 137-108 from 146-113 in 2020. Similarly, the qualifying marks range for General/ EWS PwD candidates is 137-122 as against 146-129 in 2020. This year’s qualifying marks range for disabled among OBC, SC and ST candidates is 121-108.

NTA, which conducted the test, has also emailed the results to every candidate. An NTA official said, “This is to make the process more transparent. On previous occasions, some candidates approached the agency claiming that the results accessed from the website on the first instance didn’t match with that accessed later. However, these were later found to be cases of forgery. However, now the candidates can match the results delivered in their email with that from the portal.”

The results got delayed this year due to a stay by the Bombay High Court, which was overruled by the Supreme Court on October 28.

NEET-UG is a qualifying entrance exam for admission to MBBS, BDS, Bachelor of Ayurveda, Medicine and Surgery (BAMS), Bachelor of Siddha Medicine and Surgery (BSMS), Bachelor of Unani Medicine and Surgery (BUMS), and Bachelor of Homoeopathic Medicine and Surgery (BHMS) besides BSc (Nursing) courses of various medical colleges. The test was conducted in 13 languages.

An NTA statement said,“The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Government of India will conduct the counselling for 15% All India Quota seats, Deemed Universities, Central Universities, seats of ESIC and AFMC, BHU & AMU. Candidates may visit website www.mcc.nic.in for further information. Candidates will apply for 15% All India Quota seats as per the directions of DGHS and counselling will be stopped once the seats are exhausted.”