New Delhi: NEET PG qualifying score reduced to fill seats, RS told
The government has reduced the qualifying eligibility percentile for postgraduate medical counselling in 2025 to prevent PG seats from remaining vacant, minister of state for health Anupriya Patel told the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
In a written reply, Patel said: “Consistent with past academic years which had proven effective in ensuring maximum seat utilisation, the government reduced the qualifying percentile for eligibility to PG Counselling 2025 to ensure precious PG medical seats do not remain vacant.”
The move follows the completion of two rounds of counselling. The reply further read: “The decision to revise the qualifying percentiles follows the completion of Round-2 counselling by MCC wherein it was reported that of the 29,476 seats offered by MCC for counselling, 9,621 seats remained vacant. Further, as counselling for 50% seats is conducted by respective state authorities, it was assessed that approximately 20,000 seats (including DNB seats) were vacant after two rounds.”
The minister reiterated that the qualifying percentiles for NEET PG 2025 were revised and under the new criteria, general category candidates are eligible above the 7th percentile, PwD candidates above the 5th percentile, while all SC, ST and OBC candidates have been declared qualified.
Patel clarified that the Medical Counselling Committee of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) conducts counselling for 50% All India Quota seats and 100% seats of central and deemed universities, while state governments handle counselling for state quota and private medical college seats.
A public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the January 13 Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) notification that reduced qualifying percentiles for NEET PG 2025–26 admissions, allowing eligibility at zero and negative marks, was filed by Harisharan Devgan, Dr Saurav Kumar, Dr Lakshya Mittal and Dr Akash Soni through senior advocate Sonia Mathur, along with advocate Satyam Singh Rajput.
NEET-PG is the national-level eligibility-cum-ranking examination for MBBS graduates seeking admission to MD (Doctor of Medicine), MS (Master of Surgery), PG Diploma courses, and DNB (Diplomate of National Board) broad specialty programs across public and private medical institutions in India.
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