New Delhi: A government decision to drastically reduce the cut-off percentile for admission to postgraduate (PG) seats in medical colleges after the first two rounds of counselling could be a desperate bid to fill around 8,000 seats still lying vacant, ThePrint has learnt.
Earlier this month, the government allowed General and Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category candidates with 15 percentile and reserved category students with just 10 percentile in National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) PG to register for the counselling, which is scheduled for next week. NEET PG is the entrance test allowing MBBS students to pursue Doctor of Medicine (MD) and Master of Surgery (MS) courses in medical colleges.
In the first two rounds of counselling, the cut-off percentile for these categories stood at 50 and 40, respectively.
“After the first two rounds of counselling, there are still nearly 8,000 seats—4,000 in the All India Quota and around the same number of seats in the state quota—which are lying vacant,” a senior official in the National Medical Commission (NMC), who wished not to be named, told ThePrint.
With the lowering of the cut-off percentile, the official added, the aim is to fill these vacancies to a large extent.
The latest decision, not much different from those taken in previous years, while being called “pragmatic” in order to fill the leftover seats, is also being seen as symptomatic of a systemic “malaise” in the country’s medical education landscape.
The majority of the leftover seats, according to NMC officials, are in non-clinical branches such as anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, microbiology, and pharmacology, which have typically been the last preference for most MBBS students interested in pursuing PG as they do not offer the possibility of clinical practice.
However, many have countered this claim, saying the government should make the details publicly available if the leftover seats are only in the non-clinical branches, and the latest move is not a bid to help private medical colleges offer seats to students with very low percentiles.
“If non-clinical seats are remaining vacant, the government should lower the cut-off percentile only for these branches,” Dr Ravi Wankhedkar, professor of surgery at Shri Bhausaheb Hire Government Medical College and Hospital in Maharashtra, told ThePrint.
“In fact, the number of students opting for non-clinical seats is rising as new medical colleges being opened offer job opportunities to these students,” Dr Wankhedkar, also a former president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), added.
Dr Rohan Krishnan, chairman of the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA), also suspected that the move implied the government was allowing private medical colleges to sell PG seats to anybody willing to pay for them.
“It will not help reserved category students much anyway but will rather aid private medical colleges in a big way,” he told ThePrint.
ThePrint reached NMC chairman Dr B.N. Gangadhar over the phone for comment. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
Recurring problem
According to statistics shared by the Union health ministry, there has been an 88 percent increase in medical colleges, from 387 before 2014 to 731 in 2024.
Also, there has been an increase of 118 per cent in MBBS seats from 51,348 before 2014 to 1,12,112 in 2024.
NMC officials ThePrint spoke to said that while the number of PG seats stood at 31,185 before 2014, for the students participating in the PG admission process now, the total number of seats available is around 67,000, which includes DNB (Diplomate of National Board) and a few other PG diploma seats considered equivalent to PG courses.
While around 33,000 of these seats are in government medical colleges, the rest are in private institutions.
Despite the number of PG seats rising fast over the last few years, the number of seats in medical colleges, mainly at the PG level, staying vacant has also been growing. According to a response by the government to Parliament in 2023, for instance, 3,744 PG seats in 2021-22, and 4,400 PG seats in 2022-23 had remained vacant.
Many in the field of medicine view this recurring problem as something that the government has failed to address.
“The major reason behind doctors not opting for vacant non-clinical seats is the lesser job opportunities after completion of the degree. The government needs to look at this problem specifically rather than lowering the bar for all PG seats,” Dr Dhruv Chauhan, a member of the IMA Junior Doctors’ Network, told ThePrint.
‘Lasting impact on quality of medical education’
Others pointed out that while the yearly reduction in NEET PG percentile cut-offs may be primarily driven by the need to fill vacant seats—a pragmatic step by the NMC and the government and one that allows MBBS graduates, who have already undergone rigorous training and cleared competitive exams, to pursue PG—this may have a lasting impact on the quality of medical education and the standards of students coming out of India’s medical institutions.
“Lowering NEET PG cut-off percentile dramatically, coupled with opening institutes with poor infrastructure, inadequate faculty, and low standards of training, will ultimately impact the quality of healthcare services in the country,” Dr Lakshya Mittal, president of the United Doctors Front (UDF), told ThePrint.
Dr Wankhedkar also concurred that moves like these cause a decline in the quality of medical education, which ultimately affects patient care.
Medical seats may also be remaining vacant because of low demand and high supply, Wankhedkar said.
According to him, the high cost of medical education, lowering of training standards, reducing job opportunities, and lack of government jobs, coupled with indiscriminate opening of government and private medical colleges without adequate facilities and faculty, in order to score political points, may be making the situation worse.
Dr Krishnan also stressed the fact that so many PG seats lying vacant after the second round of counselling signalled that many MBBS students were aware of the futility of taking admission in low-grade medical colleges offering poor training and education.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)
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It’s quite obvious, isn’t it. With high NEET-PG cutoffs, the overwhelming majority of students who qualified were from southern Indian states and a few others such as Bengal, Assam, Maharashtra, etc. These states have always had a solid reputation for medical education and actually adhere to standards laid out by the NMC.
The Hindi belt students were mostly unable to clear the exam and therefore could not gain admissions to PG courses. To facilitate their entry into PG courses, the cutoffs were lowered.
The whole NEET saga is one where the Centre has deliberately intervened in order to ensure greater number of students from the Hindi-belt states are able to clear the exams and gain entry into medical institutions.