Even Doctors Who Have Scored No Marks in NEET PG Can Now Become Specialists

The health ministry on Wednesday issued a notification reducing the cut-off for NEET PG to zero percentile. The move will benefit private colleges that charge exorbitant fees, critics say.

New Delhi: In a move that is ostensibly meant to ensure that no postgraduate medical seat remains vacant but will in practice benefit private colleges, the health ministry has announced that even a candidate who has not scored any marks – or even those who scored negative marks – will be eligible for NEET PG counselling.

The move was welcomed by some doctors’ associations like the Federation of Resident Doctors in India (FORDA). Still, it was also opposed by other associations and individual doctors, who felt that the move was a “mockery” of the standard of medical education and the healthcare system.

Another doctor said that reducing the cut-off to zero percentile will encourage corruption and high fees in private medical colleges and would put the medical industry “for sale” in India.

Earlier, the minimum qualifying score for NEET PG was 50 percentile for general category students – meaning that a candidate must score better than 50% of the total candidates to qualify for the test. After qualification, the candidates would choose seats in different departments based on cutoff scores and the availability of seats in each specialty.

That has now been reduced to zero percentile across all categories – meaning there is no cut-off at all. In a notification published on Wednesday, the Medical Counselling Committee of India said:

“It is for the information to candidates that vide Letter No. U-12021/07/2023-MEC (Pt-I) dated 20.09.2023 (Copy attached below), the qualifying percentile for PG Courses (Medical/ Dental) for NEET PG Counselling 2023 has been reduced to ‘ZERO’ across all categories by MoHFW.

In this regard, it is mentioned that 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.

A fresh schedule for Round-3 onwards for PG Counselling will be put up on MCC website soon. Candidates are advised to be in touch with MCC website for further updates.”

In the past week, associations like FORDA and the Indian Medical Association (IMA) had written to the health ministry to lower the cut-off. The IMA said the move will ensure that “postgraduate programs in various medical colleges across the country and not a single postgraduate seat goes vacant”. Meanwhile, FORDA claimed that it would “provide a lifeline to numerous medical students who are in a state of flux due to these uncertainties”.

However, other doctors have pointed out that after two rounds of NEET PG counselling, most of the seats that were left vacant were in private colleges. This is not because there are no eligible candidates, but because most private colleges charge fees that are unaffordable for a large number of applicants, they said.

Dr J.A. Jayalal, a former IMA president, called the announcement “disastrous” and will destablise medicine.

Doctors who opposed the reduction in cut-off said that if the vacant seats were “converted” into government college seats, they would be filled even without the need to reduce the percentile.

They also said that the reduction of the cut-off to zero percentile will ensure that candidates who have scored low marks can effectively “buy” seats.