5,000 interns ineligible for NEET PG 2022 exam, medical aspirants seek President, PM’s help

NEW DELHI: The NEET PG 2022 aspirants have written to President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the insufficient gap between the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for postgraduate (NEET PG 2022) and NEET PG 2021 Counselling. The aspirants said that it is “unfortunate” that 5,000 intern doctors are ineligible to appear in the NEET PG 2022 examination “because they served during the Covid-19 pandemic”.

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Addressing the President of India, the medical aspirants wrote, “Covid 19 has changed the fate of the world sir. But it’s the frontline workers who fought bravely including the very young Interns and medical students. During the second wave the government of India has announced the deferment of the NEET PG 2021 exam for 4 months sir. In that process many young doctors served the country. There are 5000 intern doctors who are ineligible to appear the examination because they served during the pandemic.”

“Due to unforeseen and unfortunate consequences the counselling of NEET PG 2021 has been delayed and still going on as your humble self is reading this letter,” it said.

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Insufficient gap between NEET PG exam, counselling

“As per the policy of NMC, there needs to be a sufficient gap between Counselling of one session and the next examination. But this year the all-India counselling will over by 3rd May, 2022 and State counselling will start afterwards which might go till mid or May end. The examination is scheduled on 21st May, just few days after completion of All India counselling. This stands unfair,” the letter stated.

They further wrote that the National Medical Commission (NMC) is “adamant” about not postponing the NEET PG 2022 exam date as they want to start the session by August. The aspirants also claimed that the NMC can still postpone NEET 2022 exam till July without affecting the academic session 2022.

Saying that the higher authorities including NMC, the National Board of Examination (NBE) have been repeatedly ignoring them and that it was becoming difficult to approach the court every month, the medical aspirants said that they were uncertain if they will get a seat this year.

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'NEET PG 2021 Counselling schedule changed 7 times'

“We are in a dillema if we should attend counselling or prepare for exam because of this insufficient time gap. Also, counselling schedule was changed nearly 7 times by MCC this year.”

The mop up round was cancelled both at all India and state level. “How could we study amongst these uncertainties created by these exam bodies,” they wrote in the letter.

In the previous postponement order, the ministry of health and family welfare had clearly directed the NBE to give 6-8 week gap between counselling and exam. “But due to the incompetency of MCC to complete counselling on time, we again landed in the same situation. NEET PG exam is conducted yearly once and around 1.5 lakhs doctors appear for exam, it is evident that we will be losing our precious one year of career. Why should students suffer just to prevent financial loss of NBE and NMC, which is a direct result of their irresponsibility.”

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Alleging that they were continuously "harassed mentally" by the NMC and NBE, the students said, “If the exam happens on May 21, then we 1000 of doctors have no choice but to surrender our prestigious medical degrees to Government of India at Rastrapathi Bhavan , out of disappointment, mental agony and because of the innumerable loopholes in the examination and counselling procedures by the NBE and NMC.”