NEET PG Special Stray Vacancy Round to Fill Up 1400 Vacant PG Medical Seats

New Delhi: Despite the Union Government's decision to do away with the cut-off percentile for admission to postgraduate medical education courses, more than 1,400 seats could not find any takers. In order to fill up these seats, the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) has now announced its decision to hold a special stray vacancy round. Previously, MCC held a special stray round to fill up vacant MBBS seats as well.

Issuing a notice on November 15, 2023, MCC released the schedule announced the schedule for the Special Stray Vacancy Round of NEET PG and NEET MDS Counselling for 50% AIQ and 100% Deemed/Central Universities/AFMS/PG DNB Seats for MD, MS, PG Diploma, DNB and MDS courses.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that MCC in the notice mentioned that the Union Health Ministry decided to conduct a Special Stray Vacancy Round to prevent the wastage of precious medical seats.

As per the MCC Schedule, the central counselling process will begin on 17th November 2023 and the results will be published on November 24, whereas the State Counselling will commence from 15th November 2023. The last date to join both counselling processes is 30th November 2023.

Also Read: NEET PG, NEET MDS Counselling 2023: MCC releases schedule for special stray vacancy round to fill leftover seats, all details here

Commenting on the matter, a senior official aware of the issue told Indian Express, "When we have allowed a special round of counselling for MBBS seats, we have to do the same for post-graduation as well. Every seat that has been created is a resource and we have to try to ensure that it gets utilised."

Vacant medical seats have been a matter of concern for the authorities for the last few years. Sharing the data in this regard, the Union Minister of State for Health, Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar had earlier informed that altogether 860 MBBS and 12758 PG Medical Seats remained vacant in the last three years.

This year, around 2,000 MBBS and 1,400 PG medical seats remained vacant even after multiple rounds of counselling. Earlier this year, the Union Health Ministry reduced the cut-off percentile for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Postgraduate (NEET-PG) examination to 'Zero' across all categories.

Reportedly this decision was taken by the Ministry to ensure that the number of vacant PG medical seats get reduced. Reducing the cut-off to 'zero' the Ministry made all the PG medical aspirants eligible to participate in the counselling. Despite such efforts by the authorities, 2962 MD/MS/PG Diploma Seats remained vacant for the stray vacancy round of NEET PG.

Even after the Stray Vacancy Round 1,400 PG medical seats could not find any takers and just like UG, a special stray vacancy round has been announced for the vacant PG medical seats as well.

"Candidates who are not holding any seat either in All India Quota or State Quota are eligible to participate in Special Stray Vacancy Round. However, candidates who did not join their seats allotted through MCC Round-3 onwards are ‘Not Eligible’ to participate," MCC mentioned in the notice that was issued yesterday.

Recently, the Tamil Nadu Self-Financing Medical Colleges Association (TNSFMCA) filed a plea before the Supreme Court seeking a stray counselling round to fill up the vacant postgraduate medical seats.

The cut-off criteria were removed from the third round of counselling onwards. Indian Express adds that an analysis of seat allotment after the third round showed that doing away with the cut-off resulted in a situation where seats were allotted to candidates scoring 11 out of 800 in the general category and 5 out of 800 in the OBC category.

In fact, due to this, general category candidates who scored less than SCST candidates were also being allotted seats. The Daily adds that currently, the National Medical Commission (NMC) is looking at reasons why seats are still remaining unfilled.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that recently the Apex Medical Commission conducted a meeting under the leadership of NMC Chairman Dr. B.N.Gangadhar and the meeting focused on enhancing the medical education counselling process at the national level. Further, NMC also discussed its plans to streamline and optimize the medical education counselling process across the nation.

During the meeting, the team of the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) arranged for a comprehensive presentation, in the presence of DGHS, MoHFW- Dr Atul Goel, Director General. This presentation underscored the NMC's dedication to streamlining and optimizing the counselling procedures within the field of medical education across the nation.

Also Read: Why are MBBS, and PG Medical Seats Going Vacant? NMC, MCC Conduct Meeting to Streamline Counselling Process Across India