Doctors demand extension of NEET SS 2024 Cut-off Date

New Delhi: Doctors under the Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA) have urged the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) to extend the cut-off date for the National Eligibility-Entrance Test Super Speciality (NEET-SS) 2024 examination by 15 days.

Even though as per the NBE notice, the cut-off date to be eligible to appear in the NEET SS 2024 exam is 30th April 2025, FORDA has pointed out that due to the delay in the commencement of the academic year for the 2021 batch Postgraduate medical students, the tenure of PG medical courses for several doctors will be completed after the cut-off date.

NEET-SS is an eligibility-and-ranking test for admission to various DM, MCh, and DrNB super speciality courses. A section of the medical fraternity had earlier criticised the authorities for their failure to conduct NEET SS exam in 2024. However, the decision to delay the NEET SS 2024 exam was justified by the authorities citing that most of the doctors would remain ineligible for the exam since the 2021 batch commenced their courses only in 2022.

A few months back, NBE released the exam schedule for the NEET SS 2024 exam and announced that the exam would be held on 29th and 30th of March. Recently NBE released the Information Bulletin for the exam and announced that the cut-off date for qualifying MD/ MS/DNB Broad Specialty qualification towards determination of eligibility for appearing in NEET-SS 2024 would be 30th April 2025.

However, now writing to the President of NBE, FORDA has requested the authorities to extend the cut-off date by 15 days. "We, the resident doctors, formally request an extension of the eligibility cut-off date for NEET SS 2024 by 15 days beyond the current deadline," the association said in the letter dated 11.02.2025.

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Explaining the reason for such a demand seeking an extension of the cut-off date, the association further mentioned in the letter, "Our appeal arises due to the delay in the conduct of the NEET PG 2021 exam and the subsequent counselling process for the 2021 academic batch. Many doctors joined their postgraduate courses across the country by 07-05-2022 through stray round of All India Ouota counselling letter vide F.No U-12021/06/2021-MEC dated 05-05-2022. As a result, their postgraduate tenure will conclude after 30th April 2025, making them ineligible under the current cut-off date."

"The delay in their academic journey should not prevent them from appearing for the NEET SS 2024 exam. A modest extension of the cut-off date by 15 days would provide these affected doctors, whose tenureVxtends beyond 30-04-2025, a fair opportunity to appear for the exam without their academic progression being unduly hindered. Furthermore, this approach would be focused on inclusivity without hampering the overall timeline of the exam and counselling process," it added.

The association further mentioned that granting the extension in the cut-off date would significantly alleviate the challenges faced by these candidates, enabling them to demonstrate their dedication and hard work without being penalized for circumstances beyond their control.

Commenting on the matter, the Secretary of FORDA, Dr. Meet Ghonia told Medical Dialogues, "We received so many requests from aspirants across India who joined late because of late counselling at that time in 2022. This is injustice to these aspirants because of systemic failure. So we are requesting NBEMS and NMC to consider their request to extend eligibility criteria for atleast 15 days."

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