Defying all the odds in his way, Srinagar’s Tufail Ahmad has become the first tribal from Jammu & Kashmir to qualify for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). With a lack of coaching facilities, he prepared for NEET by watching YouTube videos on his mobile phone but even that was not easily available. Tufail, who hails from the Mulnar Harwan village in Srinagar, had to go to the nearest city to get internet access for downloading the YouTube videos on his mobile phone.

“We do not have proper electricity supply and mobile connectivity is limited. So I used to walk down to the nearest city to get internet access and download videos and come back to later study from it,” the NEET qualifier was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

With no transportation facilities to his village, young Tufail had to travel over two kilometres daily to attend the government school. Tufail said that once he becomes a doctor, he wants to serve the locals in his village who have to travel several kilometres for medical help.

The journey of Tufail will surely inspire thousands of local Kashmiri youth to achieve greater things in life.

Encouraging youth to take an active part in the study of medicine has also been part of the government and the Indian Army’s plan to take the valley to normalcy.

The military had introduced the Army HPCL Kashmir Super 50 initiative to provide free coaching to students from the north Kashmir area for medical exam preparation. In this initiative, 50 meritorious students have been selected from the region based on a written test. The initiative was launched in 2018 with 30 students out of which 25 managed to qualify for the NEET. The strength was later increased to 50 to ensure more participation of girl students. Presently 30 boys and 20 girls from the north Kashmir region are part of this Army-sponsored coaching programme for medical aspirants.

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