With just nine days to go for the NEET-PG examination for the year 2022, the Indian Medical Association has written to the union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya to delay it. The students have been asking for an extension of six to ten weeks to give them time to prepare for the examination after the counselling for the previous year ends.
The examination was already deferred once from March 12 to the current date.
“As a result of the delayed counselling schedule, NEET PG 2022 was deferred … so that the candidates could appear for the stray vacancy round of NEET-PG 2021 and can still have plenty of time for preparation and re-appearance for the next NEET-PG 2022 exam if they fail to secure a seat this year… The difference between NEET PG 2022 exam date and completion of 2021 counselling is too short for the aspirant to prepare and appear for an extremely difficult exam like NEET-PG,” IMA said in their letter.
The counselling for the 2021 session was repeatedly delayed and started only in January this year. The counselling process itself went on for longer due to litigations — one of which resulted in the third mop-up round being dropped and a special round conducted – and procedural lapses such as when some seats were filled in offline counselling but were not updated online and were consequently allotted to another student too.
These delays matter because nearly three-fourths of the students make multiple attempts at NEET-PG to get the college and the course they want. With the stray vacancies still being filled and counselling still ongoing in some states, the students have said the dates of counselling for 2021 and test for 2022 may clash for some. Others have also said that they did not get enough time to prepare between the counselling and test.
Some of the doctors who participated in a strike in December last year demanding that the NEET PG counselling be expedited have also supported the current demand for a delay because they said that the resident doctors are already overworked a delay of just two months will not affect them more. Others, however, maintain that with the outgoing third year batch starting to leave the resident doctors will again be left with only two-thirds of the strength. The PG students work as junior residents in the medical college hospitals as part of their training.
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