With nearly 18,000 post-graduate medical seats remaining vacant after two rounds of counselling, the cut-off for some of the categories has been reduced to zero percentile again. The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) that conducts the qualifying NEET-PG test revised the cut-offs to 7 percentile for general category students, 5 percentile for persons with disability belonging to general and EWS category, and zero percentile for all SC, ST, OBC candidates, including those with disabilities. This would essentially mean that candidates scoring as low as -40 marks will be eligible for a post-graduation seat.
“Admissions remain strictly merit-based, determined by NEET-PG rank and candidate preferences… no direct or discretionary admissions are permitted,” said sources from NBEMS.
In 2023, when cut-off for all categories was dropped to zero percentile, doctors scoring as low as 5 marks out of 800 were able to secure post-graduation seats despite following the NEET-PG merit list.
Dr Rohan Krishnan, chief patron and co-founder of the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA), said: “With the increase in the number of PG medical seats, such decisions are being taken to fill them up in private colleges that charge crores as fees. Anyone who wants to become a good doctor will not take admission in colleges that do not teach properly, do not have teachers and facilities. This is being done for the mushrooming of this business of medical education…”
The association has written to the Union Health minister, stating: “Allowing candidates with negative marks to qualify for post-graduate medical training cannot be justified under any academic or ethical standards… such drastic reduction creates an impression that conducting a national competitive examination like NEET-PG may soon become redundant as admissions could be granted irrespective of merit, rank, or eligibility.”
The Indian Medical Association, on the other hand, had on January 12 urged the Health ministry to bring down the qualifying percentile to avoid PG medical seats going vacant.
The usual initial cut-off for general and EWS candidates is 50 percentile, for persons with disability from general category is 45 percentile, and for SC, ST, OBC candidates is 40 percentile.
Story continues below this ad
This was reduced to 15 percentile for general and EWS candidates and 10 percentile for all others last year when 15,902 seats remained vacant before the third round of counselling. The year before that, when the cut-off was dropped to zero percentile for the first time, there were 13,245 vacant seats before the third round of counselling.
Around 3,744 seats remained vacant in 2021-22 after the three main rounds of counselling and a mop up round. The following year, 4,400 seats remained vacant, according to a reply submitted in Parliament in 2023.
There has been a 138.3% increase in the number of PG medical seats in the country over the last decade. The number of seats have increased from 31,185 before 2014 to 74,306 at present. Several norms for faculty and infrastructure have been relaxed to create more medical seats in the country.
