NEET PG 2022 Counselling Expected to Commence from September 19
New Delhi: Putting an end to the long wait by the aspirants of Postgraduate medical courses, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) might commence the counselling for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Postgraduate (NEET-PG) 2022 Examination from September 19, 2022, official sources have informed PTI recently.
Besides, a similar possibility has been expressed by the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) after the FAIMA executives along with doctors from AIIMS Delhi and RML recently attended a meeting with the DGHS.
Sharing the news about the meeting on its Twitter handle, FAIMA wrote, "BREAKING! #NEETPG2022Counselling is expected to start in 2 weeks! Top @FAIMA_INDIA_ executives including doctors from AIIMS Delhi and RML had a meeting with DGHS, India just now!"
Apart from the pending NEET PG 2022 Counselling, other issue that was discussed in the Monday meeting was the mental health of resident doctors across the country.
Speaking to Medical Dialogues regarding the NEET PG Counselling, Dr. Rohan Krishnan, the President of FAIMA told Medical Dialogues, "We had raised the issue demanding immediate commencement of counselling. Since it is a sensitive issue and already it has been delayed for quite a lot now, when we addressed the matter, DGHS assured us that they are also taking the matter very seriously. They also assured us that the counselling process is likely to commence within two weeks."
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"Once the addition of the extra seats is done by the National Medical Commission, the counselling is expected to start, they have assured us. So, we hope that the counselling will start within two weeks," he added.
The counselling for NEET-PG 2022 examination was set to commence from September 1. However it got rescheduled at the end moment as the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC), operative under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare announced about this decision.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that issuing notification in this regard, MCC under the DGHS mentioned on its website that the counselling which was set to start from September 1 has been rescheduled considering that the National Medical Commission (NMC) is still in the process of issuing new Letters of Permission, LoPs to the medical colleges for this academic year.
Therefore, the counselling has been delayed so that more MD, MS or PG Diploma seats can be added to the seat matrix accordingly. MCC had also announced that the revised schedule would be released later on its official website.
While the PG medical aspirants have been waiting for the commencement of the counselling since the publication of their results on June 1, further rescheduling of the counselling process is being heavily criticized by the medical fraternity. Aspirants have already started to express their anger and frustration over the MCC notice.
Meanwhile, this decision of postponing the counselling got heavily criticized by the resident doctors. In fact, referring to the delay in last year's counselling and the nationwide strike thereafter, the Federation of Resident Doctors' Association (FORDA) and Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) had warned the authorities for possible protest activities if the counselling does not get started at the earliest.
Usually, the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Postgraduate), or NEET-PG, is held in January and the counselling starts in March. But on account of the COVID-19 pandemic and the delay in last year's admission process, this year's exam was held on May 21 and results were declared on June 1, a senior official told PTI.
This year's PG counselling is likely to be held for around 60,000 seats. Students who have qualified in the exam will be able to fill their choices with respect to courses and colleges during the counselling process for admission to the all India quota seats, state medical and dental colleges, central and deemed universities.
The counselling will commence for all central universities, deemed universities and 50 per cent of the all India quota and 50 per cent of the state quota of both medical as well as dental colleges simultaneously, officials said.
