Around 889 seats Vacant: Doctors urge Health Minister to lower NEET SS cutoff percentile

"As per the current seat matrix, a total of 889 super speciality seats (DM, MCH, DNB) have remained vacant even after the second round of counselling for NEET Superspeciality 2021. The current counselling process could be made more accessible to a larger number of specialist doctors if the cutoff percentile for eligibility was reduced to the maximum. A similar process took place in 2019 when the cutoff percentile for eligibility was reduced to the maximum. A similar process took place in 2019 when the cutoff percentile was lowered to the 20th percentile during the mop-up round, and in 2020 when the cutoff percentile was lowered to the the 45th percentile. Despite the decline in the cut-off percentile during the last two years, a lower cutoff allowed for maximum utilization of super speciality seats and the least wastage. As opposed to this, in 2020, when the cutoff percentile was not reduced substantially, the maximum number of super specialization seats (more than 700) remained vacant, resulting in a waste of such precious seats," it added.

"We urge the concerned authorities to look into this matter as early as possible and take immediate steps to help the country acquire more super specialist doctors," stated the association in the letter dated 29.04.2022.

Speaking to Medical Dialogues regarding the issue, Dr. Rohan Krishnan, the president of FAIMA said, "The NEET SS counselling is going on and the first two rounds are already over. The eligibility bar which is decided by NBE will lead to around 890 vacant seats. A lot of doctors who appeared in the test are going to be held ineligible for this strict eligibility criteria. On the other hand, keeping in mind the scarcity of super-specialists in India, it is the duty of the Government and the Health department to fill up these vacant seats on a priority basis.

"Last year also around 700 seats remained vacant. So, the eligibility bar should be set while keeping in mind that the goal of holding the entrance exam is to fill up the seats. Therefore, we urge the authorities to take note of this and solve the issue at the earliest," he added.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that FAIMA had previously made similar kind of demand for NEET PG cutoff percentile as well. The association had approached the Union Health Ministry and had requested the authorities to revise the cut-off criteria so that most of the seats could be filled and the seats don't get wasted.

Ultimately, with the interference of the Health Ministry, NBE took a call on the matter and lowered the percentile for NEET PG counselling 2021.