NEET PG 2023: After Extension of Internship Deadline, now students demanding postponement of exam

New Delhi: After the extension of the Internship Deadline for appearing in National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Postgraduate (NEET-PG) Examination, now the candidates are seeking postponement of the PG medical entrance test by six to eight weeks.

Referring to the postponed deadline for completion of MBBS Internship i.e. June 30, the students have pointed out that the candidates would not be able to participate in the counselling process without the internship completion certificate.

Therefore, the students have started requesting the authorities to postpone the NEET PG 2023 exam, which is scheduled to be held on March 05, 2023.

Supporting the demands of the students, Dr Rohan Krishnan, the National Chairman of Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) has mentioned in a Tweet, "NEET PG exams should be postponed till May as counselling cannot start before July. Requesting @MoHFW_INDIA to look into this seriously & @NMC_IND shd become more students friendly. Also NEET MDS extension for internship cut off date shd b done similarly as NEETPG."

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.

Also Read: Health Perspectives with Dr Rohan Krishnan: Are we ready for NEXT exam?

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."

While NBE kept the date of the examination unchanged, now the NEET PG aspirants are demanding postponement of the exam since they would not be able to participate in the counselling process in the absence of the Internship Completion Certificate.

Referring to the issue, a NEET PG aspirant from Kolkata told Edex Live, "We demand that the dates get deferred by at least six to eight weeks now that the internship cut-off date has been extended until June 30."

"There is no logic in conducting the exam in March, given the counselling process requires an internship completion certificate," he added.

Apart from this, the candidates have also pointed out how they will have to sit idle for four months or more before the commencement of the counselling process. They have also referred to the fact that the hospitals would not hire for such a short period of time.

While commenting on the matter, Gaurav Tyagi, NEET counsellor told Edex Live, "Nearly four months separate the exam date from the internship deadline. Why waste these months sitting about when they could be studying for the exam instead? Counselling won't begin until after the internship."

Amidst all this, the candidates are also concerned over the fact that the NEET PG exam shall be replaced by National Exit Test (NExT) next year. "This is the last NEET exam and we want to give it our best. Deferring the examination by six to eight weeks will aid most students. Additionally, if the internship is extended through July 31st, about 90% of the 2017 batch will benefit," an aspirant told the daily on the condition of anonymity.

Supporting the demands of the students for postponing the exam, Dr Rohan Krishnan, the National Chairman of FAIMA told Medical Dialogues, "The issue started because of the Internship Deadline. Due to this, thousands of students were termed to be ineligible to appear in the examination and this resulted in a chaos."

"Now that the authorities have extended the deadline to June 30, it clearly means that the counselling process will not start till July. So, in that scenario that the students are requesting for some more time to prepare for the exam. It is ideal according to me. The exam can be postponed till May since even the admit cards have not been issued yet," he further mentioned.

"It will be favourable for the students and i think we need to have an examination system which is student-friendly. So, I think the exam can be postponed for another 4 to 8 weeks," added Dr Krishnan.

Also Read: Relief for NEET PG Candidates: NBE extends internship deadline to June 30, 2023