Delay in NEET PG Kerala State Counselling: MCC urged to Postpone 3rd Round of Counselling

Thiruvananthapuram: Citing delays in the completion of the second round of State-level counselling in several States, the postgraduate medical aspirants from Kerala have urged the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) to postpone the third round of All India Quota (AIQ) counselling for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Postgraduate (NEET-PG) examination.

As per the schedule, the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC), the authority in charge of monitoring the counselling and seat allocation process for the medical courses in India, will conduct the third round of AIQ counselling for admission to deemed, central and other universities from December 26 to January 1.

Normally, AIQ and State Counselling processes run concurrently and therefore, students can make informed choices. After the State Counselling processes, the vacant seats usually get carried forward to the subsequent AIQ counselling round.

However, this year, the PG medical counselling in various States including Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Rajasthan, were delayed or suspended due to the ongoing legal proceedings. Due to this, several seats that normally should have been included in the third round of AIQ counselling are still unavailable.

Also Read: NEET PG State counseling Delayed, Telangana PG Aspirants Cry Foul

Kerala has a limited number of PG medical seats. Therefore, typically, many candidates rely on vacancies in other States across the country to secure admission.

Referring to the issue, aspirants have argued that if the third round of AIQ counselling proceeded as scheduled, these seats would not be accounted for in the AIQ counselling process and therefore, deserving candidates will lose the opportunity to secure a seat based on their merit. 

They pointed out that these vacant seats may be allocated in the stray round of counselling, where lower-ranke candidates often fill them, potentially denying higher-ranked candidates a fair chance, a candidate lamented.

As per the latest media report by The Hindu, the aspirants have requested the authorities to postpone the AIQ 3rd round of counselling by one week to allow the completion of State-level counselling. They believe this delay would ensure that all the vacant seats would be included in the third round of State counselling and all the candidates would get a fair chance based on their merit.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that more than 8000 PG medical aspirants in Telangana were facing uncertainty regarding their future due to the non-release of merit list for the State-level counselling by the Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS). Due to the disruption in the Central and State Counselling, PG medical aspirants are unaware of their rankings even though they registered for the State Counselling weeks ago.

These issues are being raised by the PG medical aspirants when the plea seeking transparency in the NEET PG exam is already pending before the Supreme Court bench. The case has been postponed several times and now it is listed for further hearing before the top court bench on January 7, 2024.

Also Read: NEET PG 2024 Plea Deferred Again! SC to Hear Matter likely on January 7, 2025