NEET PG 2024 exam centre row: Shashi Tharoor urges Health Minister Nadda to authorise enough centres in every state

New Delhi: Amid the row over NEET PG 2024 exam centre allocation, the Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has written to the Union Health Minister J P Nadda urging for the authorisation of enough exam centres in every state on August 11 so that students do not have to travel thousands of kilometres and will be able to avoid the hassle of arranging affordable and safe accommodation.

In a letter to Nadda that Tharoor posted on X, the Congress leader also drew the minister's attention to reports that the number of cities in which the tests are to be conducted has been reduced significantly.

He said since the late evening of August 4, he has been deluged with representations from innumerable NEET-PG aspirants, adding, "I am convinced that there is, indeed, a major problem." It appears that aspirants are still being constrained to travel faraway distances, in some cases, even spanning thousands of kilometres, Tharoor said.

"The current weather, which has spawned vicious vagaries of nature across India, challenges of ticket availability, shortage of affordable accommodation and concerns of safety place these doctors in an untenable position. If we are to have national exams, we ought to be able to authorise enough centres in every state, especially given the manageable number of aspirants, allowing candidates to take the exam from centres easily accessible from their places of education or residence," he added.

"The whole idea of a national examination is vitiated unless it is one test on one date everywhere across India. Exacerbating all of this are the reports that the number of cities, where the tests are to be conducted, has been reduced significantly," he said in the letter.

"In light of the foregoing, I will be grateful if your office could look into these issues and resolve them at your earliest convenience. For if the NEET-PG 2024 is allowed to go through as it is, it will severely imperil the future of our doctors," he said.

The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) would be conducting the exam in two shifts across the country for 2,28,542 candidates at 416 examination centres in 170 cities.

The exam will be conducted in two shifts and the scores of the candidates will be normalised.

Meanwhile, NBEMS President Dr Abhijat Sheth told PTI on Thursday that private entrepreneur institutes have been avoided for NEET-PG 2024 centres for better monitoring and to eliminate any possibility of malpractice.

The exam, which is conducted by the NBEMS along with its technical partner TCS, has been embroiled in controversies over allegations of paper leaks twice, both of which have been rejected by the authorities.

"We are relying on the TCS iON centres and AICTE-affiliated institutes to hold the exam this time for better supervision and also to stem out any possibility of malpractice. A few private entrepreneur centres have been roped in where there are no TCS iON or AICTE-affiliated institutes available," Sheth said.

"We have ensured that the students are issued exam centres in the same state in accordance with their given addresses while filling up forms to the best extent possible," he added.

"Holding in shifts and normalisation is an old and a legitimate process for conducting exams in India. Institutions like IITs, AIIMS etc. are conducting examinations in multiple shifts," Sheth said.

Regarding some candidates being reassigned exam centres on August 4, he said that was because of the addition of new centres to further reduce the inter-state travel of some candidates, in accordance with the suggestions of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW).

Sheth said 90 per cent students have been allotted exam centres within the state of their correspondence address and the remaining have been allotted centres in nearby states due to limitations of testing seats in their own correspondence states.

Filing the plea, the petitioner claimed that many candidates who will appear in the exam have been allocated test cities that are highly inconvenient for them to reach. Approaching the top court, the petitioner submitted that the NEET PG 2024 aspirants were allocated test cities on 31.07.2024 and specific centres are scheduled to be declared on 08.08.2024.

While it was done to curb any malpractice in the examination, the petitioner submitted that given the short notice, it became highly difficult for the students to make arrangements for their travel to their specific cities.