NEET PG 2024 New Date to be Announced Before Next Weekend, says NBE Chief: Report

New Delhi: The new date for the National Eligibility-and-Entrance Test Postgraduate (NEET PG) 2024 examination will be announced "hopefully before next weekend", Dr. Abhijat Sheth, President of the National Board of Examinations (NBE) informed The Indian Express.

Dr. Sheth informed that a plan has been shared with the Union Ministry of Education and after getting the approval from the Ministry, a new exam date will be intimated to the students.

"We are hoping to conclude the process in two months," he told the Daily.

This comes after the NBE Chief assured the Indian Medical Association (IMA) that the new date for the NEET PG 2024 exam will be announced very shortly. IMA informed about this through a Press Release after the representatives of the association had a meeting with the NBE President to discuss the sudden postponement of the NEET-PG 2024 examination, which was scheduled to be held on 23rd June 2024.

Sudden Postponement of NEET PG 2024 Exam: 

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that amid the NEET-UG 2024 paper leak controversies, the Union Health Ministry postponed the postgraduate medical entrance examination at the last minute i.e. just 12 hours before it was scheduled to take place.

The Union Health Ministry took this decision as a precautionary measure amid the ongoing controversies concerning the NEET exam as well as the UGC NET exam.

"Taking into consideration, the recent incidents of allegations regarding the integrity of certain competitive examinations, Ministry of Health has decided to undertake a thorough assessment of the robustness of processes of NEET-PG Entrance Examination, conducted by National Board of Examinations for medical students. It has accordingly been decided, as precautionary measure to postpone the NEET-PG Entrance Examination, scheduled to be held tomorrow i.e. 23rd June, 2024," the Ministry had stated in a release, adding that "Fresh date of this examination will be notified at the earliest."

The sudden postponement of the NEET PG 2024 examination resulted in panic and stress among the PG medical aspirants who travelled hundreds of miles to reach their exam centres.

Also Read: Losing faith in Indian Medical Education system! Doctors upset Over NEET PG 2024 Postponement

No Paper Leaks, Confirms NBE Chief: 

Explaining why the PG medical entrance test was cancelled only 12 hours before it was scheduled to commence, Dr. Sheth clarified to Indian Express that "there were no reports of a paper leak or any other kind of such issue".

As per NBE, the exam was cancelled since the "Ministry wanted to check the robustness of the exam process, and we wanted to be sure that there is no vulnerability in this process."

Referring to the cancellation of several exams of the National Testing Agency (NTA), the NBE Chief added that the situation was "overly sensitive" this time.

"A leak in the NEET PG exam is not possible, as our exam is conducted in a computer-based test (CBT) format, which means that everything is done online and the question paper is not published anywhere. Usually, we generate the question paper almost an hour before the exam, so there is no possibility of a paper leak," Dr. Sheth said.

"However, there are some miscreants in our society who take advantage of the vulnerability of students in such tense situations and tell students that they can help them pass the exam for a fixed amount of money. In such cases, they take half payment before the exam and then if the student passes, they claim it is because of them. If the student does not clear the exam, these miscreants run away with their half payment," he added.

"Considering how sensitive the situation already was this year, we wanted to avoid such a situation where fraudulent agents could take advantage of students, and that’s why this step was taken," he explained to the Daily.

Strict SoPs, assures NBE: 

The NBE Chief pointed out that while NBE has been conducting this NEET PG exam for the past seven years, there was no reported incident of a paper leak, not once. Referring to this, he said that this was only because the Board has stringent SoPs regarding the conduction of the PG medical entrance test.

"We have very strict SoPs for conducting this exam, and we ensure that all rules are followed. Additionally, this year, the government has advised us on a few more points, and we plan to implement them in the future. The advised SoPs are for more audits on application and exam process, some on how to improve human resources, and more. All the points raised by the government are doable, and even though we may not be able to implement them right away, we plan to implement them in the near future for a lifetime benefit," he added.

IMA Issues Release: 

Recently, the IMA representatives met with the NBE officials to discuss the issues concerning the difficulties, anxiety, and expectations of the NEET-PG aspirants.

Issuing a Press Release in this regard on Thursday i.e. on June 27, 2024, IMA informed that NBE Chief has assured to announce the new dates for NEET-PG shortly.

"Dr. Anilkumar J Nayak, Honorary Secretary General, IMA met with Dr. Abhijat Sheth, President National Board of Examination regarding NEET PG and conveyed the difficulties, anxiety and expectations of the NEET PG aspirants. Unlike NEET UG aspirants those appearing for NEET PG examination are full-fledged doctors either at work in the hospitals or studying intensively under several coaching centres. The disruption in NEET PG not only affects the doctors and their services but also dislocates patient care at several centres," IMA mentioned in the release.

"IMA acknowledged the fact NBE has been an institution of excellence and has an unblemished record in conducting examinations across the board for medical graduates. IMA apprised the NBE Chief of the situation and expressed its demand to announce the date for NEET PG as early as possible. IMA also expressed its hope that NBE will live up to standards it has set for itself and conduct the examination with fairness and transparency. The NBE Chief responded positively and assured that the new dates will be announced very shortly," the association further added.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that recently the NBE President Dr. Abhijat Sheth announced that the next date for the NEET-PG 2024 exam would be declared by next week.

Dr Sheth's statement came after a review meeting held between officials of the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences and the Union Health Ministry, to access the situation and input received by the government before postponing the examination.

"The integrity of this examination was never in doubt as far as NEET PG is concerned. For the last seven years, we have conducted so far successfully... Because of the recent events, what has happened that there were lots of concerns about all these sorts of examinations from the student communities and in response to that, the government has decided to ensure once more to make sure that the sanctity of the examination the safety and security must be maintained. So they have decided to review the SOPs and protocols as soon as possible. We will declare the next due date in one next week...," Dr. Sheth informed ANI.

Also Read: NEET PG 2024 exam date will be declared by next week: NBE President