Doctors with zero percentile in NEET PG exam can now join PG courses

The qualifying percentile for the National Entrance cum Eligibility Test (NEET) for postgraduate (PG) medical and dental courses has been brought down to zero across all categories by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The decision was announced on Wednesday, September 20 in a notification issued by the Medical Counselling Committee of India. With this, any student who appears for the NEET PG exam will be eligible to attend the counselling process, unless they get a negative percentile. Prior to this, the cut-off percentile for students from general/unreserved categories was 50, while it was 45 for persons with disability (PwD) and 40 for students of other reserved categories. .The move reducing the qualifying percentile has been done with the view to fill all medical PG seats in the country and to avoid seats lying vacant. In fact, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) had written to the Health Ministry on September 13 with a similar request, so that most seats in clinical and non-clinical branches would be filled. The IMA had argued that reducing the qualifying percentile would “ensure that a significant number of aspiring doctors can enrol for postgraduate programmes in various medical colleges across the country and not a single postgraduate seat goes vacant.” According to the IMA, high cut-off scores not only prevented aspiring medical students from entering post graduation, but also “compelled them to travel overseas to pursue their dream field of post graduation, further depleting the medical manpower pool in India.” The IMA had, however, only requested that the qualifying percentile be lowered up to 30, and not zero as the government has done.The first two rounds of counselling for the students who appeared for NEET PG 2023 has been concluded. The notification said, “Fresh Registration & Choice Filling for Round-3 of PG Counselling will be opened again for candidates who have become eligible after reduction of percentile. Candidates who have become freshly eligible can register and participate in Round-3 of counselling. The candidates who are already registered need not register again. However, they will be allowed to edit their choices.” The Federation of Resident Doctors’ Association (FORDA) has welcomed the move.Many argue that the government’s move will not be the boost to India’s medical system that it is projected as, and that it will only aid private medical colleges to fill up their vacant seats by charging exorbitant amounts. Opponents of the move said that by effectively removing a qualifying percentile for candidates who appear for NEET PG, the government has enabled a situation where those with low scores can ‘buy’ seats in private medical colleges. Dr JA Jayalal, former IMA president, said that the issue of vacant seats would not arise if all private seats were converted to government seats. “Convert all lapsed seats as govt seats, in no time all seats will be filled up by meritorious students,” he said..The Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) called the move a “mockery of the standard of medical education and healthcare system.” FAIMA chairman Dr Rohan Krishnan said that the move “is only going to promote corruption and high fees in private medical colleges. It is shameful that any medical body supported this step of zero percent merit. Medical industry has come for sale in India and merit is dying everyday.”Notably, in 2022, the qualifying percentile for NEET PG had been reduced by 25 across all categories. This meant that general category candidates who scored 25 percentile, PwD candidates who scored 20, and other reserved category students who secured 15 were eligible for counselling in the previous year.

Doctors with zero percentile in NEET PG exam can now join PG courses

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