Private, more than government, colleges to gain more from NEET PG cutoff drop India News

When the cut-off percentile for NEET PG 2023 drops to zero, private colleges will benefit more than public colleges. About 64% of the seats occupied by students with marks below the initial cut-off were from private universities. Not only this, 2,677 (approximately 85%) of the clinical specialty seats obtained by those with scores below the initial cutoff were also in private medical colleges. In comparison, only 485 clinical professional seats in government colleges were filled by people who scored below the initial cutoff. Private universities have the highest tuition fees for clinical majors.

General category candidates benefited the most from the lowering of score lines, accounting for more than 56% of those admitted with scores lower than the first line. OBCs accounted for 26%, SC and ST candidates 11% and 6% respectively. The bias is more pronounced among students who get clinical specialization from private universities – 70% are from the general category and about 20% are from OBC. In government colleges, general category accounts for 33% of such seats and OBC 37%. To understand what happens when the cut-off drops to zero percentile, TOI analyzed the admissions to PG seats in 2023, when the cut-off drops to zero percentile or -40 (out of 800 points) for all categories. The reduction comes as thousands of seats remain vacant. The “Comprehensive List” for PG admissions in 2023 published on the National Health Commission website shows that the lowest admission score is for general candidates, with a full score of 800 being zero. 69 candidates with scores below 50 were admitted. These include 39 from general category, 20 from OBC, 7 from SC and 3 from ST category. The ‘Consolidated List of PG Students’ for NEET admission 2023 was released on the NMC website on June 13, 2024, but the data was provided for only about 43,900 seats. According to the Ministry of Health’s reply to a Federal House question in July 2024, there are 54,834 PG seats in medical colleges in 2023. This indicates that data for more than 10,900 seats is missing from the list. For example, it does not include data on PG seats in central government-aided colleges like PGI Chandigarh, JIPMER and all AIIMS. There is also no admission data for more than 10,000 DNB seats.