The Medical Counseling Committee (MCC) of the Union Ministry of Health has announced that the percentile of cut-off marks for admission to post-graduate level of medicine will be zero from this time. Until now, to get admission in MD-MS, you had to get 50 percentile marks in NEET-PG exam. It was 40 in the reserved quota. This time, as it has become empty, various organizations of doctors have moved on the issue.
Even after two rounds of post graduate level counseling this year, all the seats are not filled. Especially private medical college seats were vacant. Monitoring the issue, Indian Medical Association and other organizations requested the central government to reduce the percentile of cut-off marks. But the MCC issued a notification on this day and voided it. Sajal Biswas, general secretary of doctors’ organization Service Doctors Forum, said, “Every year the cut-off marks are relaxed. But to nullify it means to bring down the glorious place of Indian medical education in one fell swoop.”
Central health officials claim that zero percentile never means zero percentage or zero marks obtained. In an 800 mark exam, the candidate whose score is the lowest is called the zero percentile. Manas Gumta, General Secretary, Association of Health Service Doctors, said, “Zero percentile means the lowest score, even if it is zero, one can get an opportunity to study MD-MS. In other words, there is an opportunity in medicine only if you have money, not talent. It has given more opportunity to medical and education businessmen to profit.
Out of the country’s 45,000 postgraduate seats in medicine, 19,000 are in private medical colleges. Mainly the private seats are vacant. Allegedly, this system is to give benefits to private colleges. Biplab Chandra, State Secretary of Medical Service Center, said that they are demanding immediate withdrawal of this notice from the Central Government. Sams Musafir, the state vice-president of student organization AIDSO and convener of the state medical unit, said, “The Center is continuously handing over medical education to the corporate hands. This time the criteria for making specialist doctors has been relaxed. It is harming the society.
