Express News Service
NEW DELHI: Thousands of junior doctors have urged the government to postpone the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-PG) 2022 by two months because the counseling process for the 2021 exams is not yet over.
In an online poll conducted by the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA), over 85 percent voted for postponing the exams slated for May 21. One and a half lakh MBBS students are taking the NEET PG 2022 exam.
According to Dr Chinmayee Gowda, the women wing in charge of the FAIMA Doctors Association, there needs to be a sufficient gap between counseling of one session and the subsequent examination.
“But this year, the all India NEET PG counseling of 2021 will get over by May 3, and then the state counseling will start, which will probably get over by May end. We all will be busy with the counseling process, so how can we prepare for the NEET PG 2022 exams scheduled for May 21. We will not have enough time to prepare for the exams. This is very unfair,” the Bengaluru-based NEET PG aspirant told this newspaper.
She added that the new session would start in August, so if the NEET PG 2022 exam is conducted in July, it will not impact the 2022 academic session procedure.
India has about 38,000 post-graduate seats for about 78,000 MBBS graduates. There are 50 percent All India quota seats, and the remaining 50 percent are the state quota seats, which offer 19,000 MD/MS seats.
What is also adding to their woes is that for the state counseling, which is the selection and reporting to the selected medical colleges, they have to be physically present. and for that, they have to travel to different states.
“We are in a dilemma whether to prepare for the exam or attend the counseling,” said Dr. Benhur Basheer, a NEET PG aspirant from Kerala.
“It is unfortunate that even after the postponement of NEET PG 2022 from March to May was done with the objective that the counseling of 2021 will be over in April. But still, the counseling process is not over,” FAIMA president Dr. Rohan Krishnan told this newspaper.
The federation is planning to meet the health ministry officials to find a solution that “satisfies the aspirants and also ensures a workforce if at all an impending Covid wave sets in.”
The demand for the postponement is not only trending on social media, but students have also made several representations to not only the Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya but also to the Prime Minister’s Office and President Ram Nath Kovind. They have also threatened to surrender their degrees if the NEET PG exam is not postponed.
Several MPs, including Shashi Tharoor, S. Venkatesan, Tejasvi Surya, Hibi Eden, Karti Chidambaram, and Dr. DNV Senthilkumar S, have also written to the union health minister raising the issue.
The NEET PG exams are usually held in December/January. It got postponed to March and then to May, mainly because most medical students were on Covid duties.
