Postpone NEET PG 2024: Shashi Tharoor urges Centre to defer exam citing NEET UG paper leak

NEW DELHI: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has urged the Centre to postpone NEET PG 2024 citing allegations surrounding the conduct of NEET-UG exam 2024 and persisting heatwave in north India. The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) will administer the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test postgraduate (NEET PG 2024) tomorrow for admission into MD, MS and other PG medical courses.

“Given the allegations surrounding the conduct of NEET-UG exams, I urge the Government to postpone NEET-PG scheduled on June 23rd,” Tharoor tweeted.

Requesting the board to defer the exam, he wrote: “Additionally, as an MP from Kerala, I must point out that due to the shortage of seats in examination centres here, hundreds of people from the Southern states of India are forced to come North to take this exam — and the current severe heatwave situation in the North, which has taken the lives of over 100 people in the last 3 months, and resulted in some 40,000 suspected heat stroke cases, puts these students unnecessarily at risk.”

Yesterday, the NBEMS issued a circular warning aspirants about a social media platforms claiming to provide NEETPG questions for a considerable sum of money.

Around 2,06,541 aspirants appear in the NEET PG exam every year, the NBE had said earlier. The ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW) in February 2024 informed that PG medical seats have increased by 127% in the last 10 years. The total number of NEET PG seats have been increased from 31,185 before 2014 to 70,645 as of now, as per the government data.

The NEET PG exam date 2024 was changed thrice this year. Unlike previous years, the NBE notified the exam calendar and scheduled the NEET PG exam 2024 on March 3. However, after student protests, the exam was postponed to July 7 and then later advanced to June 23.