Around 3,000 NEET PG Aspirants ineligible: KNRUHS Medicos approach State Health Minister seeking postponement of exam

Hanamkonda: The future of around 3000 NEET-PG aspirants are uncertain since the Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS) has extended the internship of MBBS students till August 11. 

While the last date to apply for NEET PG 2023 examination is January 27, the MBBS Interns belonging to Osmania, Gandhi, Kakatoya and several private medical colleges have urged the Health Minister T Harish Rao for ensuring that the NEET PG 2023 exam gets postponed and hundreds of MBBS Students in the State do not lose their academic year.

The Minister has reportedly assured to take up the issue with the Union Government for protecting the interests of thousands of students in the State.

National Board of examinations (NBE) had earlier announced that NEET PG 2023 will be held on 5th March 2023. The result will be declared By 31st March 2023. As per the previous eligibility criteria announced by NBE, the NEET PG 2023 candidates must complete their mandatory one-year MBBS internship on or before March 31.

However, Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that due to this Internship Deadline, hundreds of students were facing year loss since they were unable to fulfill the eligibility criteria of completing the MBBS internship within March 31.

After various representations from doctors and organizations, finally NBE offered to relief to the NEET PG aspirants and extended the Internship Deadline to June 30, 2023.

Informing about the decision of the Union Health Ministry to extend the deadline, NBE had mentioned, "The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Govt. of India vide its email dated 13.01.2023 has revised the cut-off date for completion of internship for the purpose of eligibility for NEET-PG 2023 to 30th June 2023."

Also Read: NEET PG 2023: Doctors write to Health Minister seeking postponement

However, in case of Telangana, the matter remains unsolved since KNRUHS has extended the internship deadline of MBBS students till August 11, 2023, adds the New Indian Express. As a result, the MBBS students, who need to complete their internship before June 30, have become ineligible for apearing in the NEET PG 2023 exam. While altogether 3000 students are affected by this, Kakatiya Medical College (KMC) alone has about 200 interns who are now ineligible for writing the PG medical entrance test.

Informing that the University has extended the Internship due to various reasons including COVID-19 pandemic, a final-year medico from KMC, Warangal demanded that the University authorities should write to the Union Government and explain the circumstances that resulted in the delayed MBBS Internship. Blaming the University authorities and the State Government for the situation of medicos, he demanded that the authorities should approach the Union government and seek postponement of the PG medical entrance test.

“But the future of 3,000 students is in jeopardy," he told TNIE.

While commenting on the matter, the President of Junior Doctors Association of KMC, D Srinath has stated that the interns of Osmania, Gandhi, Kakatiya and several other private medical institutes have already submitted a representation to the Health Minister T Harish Rao in this regard and urged him for postponing the exam.

Informing that the Health Minister has responded positively, Shrinath further told the daily, “We are also using our channels to get the NEET PG postponed.”

“In the event of the efforts of the State government failing in getting the test postponed, we are keeping the option of approaching the court open,” he added.

Speaking about this, Telangana State Junior Doctors Association (JUDA) president N Karthik explained that KNRUHS authorities should take up the responsibility and follow up on the representation submitted to the Union Government for postponing NEET PG 2023.

“If the university authorities failed in this regard, we will announce our future action plan,” he added.

Also Read: NEET PG Postponement Demand: Why is this becoming a yearly phenomena?