Two rounds of counselling over; 13,000 postgraduate medical seats remain vacant
medical colleges, ToI reported on September 23 citing sources from Health ministry.
The sources also justified the need to cut the qualifying percentile to zero, the report added.
According to the ministry sources cited by the newspaper, India has a total 68,142 postgraduate medical seats. These seats are filled on the basis of the NEET-PG examination rankings.
As many as 2.2 lakh medical graduates appeared for the exam this year.
«Initially, the qualifying percentile was fixed at 50, meaning 50 per cent of the applicants could appear for counselling to claim the seats as per their rankings. But many seats remained vacant after two rounds of counselling, which is why it was decided to reduce the qualifying percentile,» one source told ToI.
The qualifying percentile was reduced to 20 to fill up vacant seats last year too, the source added.
3,000 seats in all-India quota and several seats from state quota remained vacant after counselling.
«Allowing all medical graduates who appeared for NEET-PG exams to participate in the counselling process is aimed at increasing the pool of applicants, but seats will be allotted only on the basis of merit,» they said.
Till now, few have opted for non-clinical specialities like anatomy, microbiology, physiology and pathology, the ministry claimed. Because of this, seats earmarked for them remain vacant, which caused a shortage of teachers for the said courses.
«Now, the chances of filling up such seats will increase and so will the chances of getting teachers to teach these courses to medical students,» an official told the newspaper.
