The Union health ministry has allowed all doctors who took the National Eligibility and Entrance Test for Postgraduate (NEET-PG) medical courses in 2023 to seek admission irrespective of their test scores, drawing applause from some medics but criticism from others.
The ministry announced on Wednesday that the qualifying percentile for NEET-PG counselling 2023 “has been reduced to zero across all categories”, effectively rendering all candidates who had appeared for the test eligible for admission.
A fresh registration and choice-filling round will be opened again for the candidates who have become eligible after the percentile reduction, the ministry said. “Candidates who have become freshly eligible can register and participate in round-3 of counselling,” it said.
The decision comes a week after the Indian Medical Association (IMA), the country’s largest body of doctors, had urged the ministry to lower the qualifying percentile for NEET-PG 2023 from 50 to 30 to ensure that all PG seats in medical colleges get assigned.
Admission data show that 3,000 to 4,000 PG seats have remained vacant each year over the past three years in the nationwide pool of 55,000 to 64,000 seats. A lowered cut-off will allow more doctors to join PG courses and ensure that not a single seat goes vacant, the IMA had said.
The ministry’s decision to lower the qualifying percentile to zero is more than the threshold of 30 that the IMA had sought. “We welcome this order — filling up PG seats means we will have more faculty for our medical colleges in the years to come,” said IMA national president Sharadh Agarwal.
But members of the Federation of All India Medical Associations, a nationwide network of postgraduate residents and doctors, have decried the zero percentile cut-off, arguing that it undermines merit and will primarily benefit private colleges that charge high fees.
“There is absolutely no shortage of doctors with high scores,” said Rohan Krishnan, FAIMA national chairman. “The vast majority of PG seats that go vacant are in private colleges that charge up to Rs 50 lakh per year. Seats go vacant only because many qualifying students cannot afford such fees.”
Under the zero percentile threshold, Krishnan said, even students who have scored negative marks in the NEET-PG will be eligible for admission. “We’ve never ever seen such an order before. This means anyone who took the test and can afford the high fees can join a PG course.”
Krishnan and others said the ministry’s decision appeared intended to help private medical colleges fill up seats that might otherwise remain vacant.
The order also drew sarcasm from some doctors. It seems the ministry does not want to take any chances by fixing a high percentile, Kerala-based ophthalmologist K.V. Babu wrote on X. “I wonder, if seats are still vacant, will (they) be offered to those who could not or forgot to appear in the NEET PG exam?”
