NEET-PG 2024 postponed as ‘precautionary measure’

“This decision has been taken in the best interests of the students and to maintain the sanctity of the examination process… fresh dates will be announced at the earliest,” the ministry said in a statement.

Union health secretary Apurva Chandra told The Indian Express: “NEET PG is being postponed as a precautionary measure.”

Importantly, the test is not conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA), that is currently embroiled in the NEET-UG controversy. The body was also responsible for the UGC-NET test that had to be cancelled a day later due to a paper leak.

NEET-PG is conducted by the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences that is equipped to test advanced medical knowledge.

Allegations of irregularities with NEET-UG surfaced after an unusually high number of students secured full marks in the test. This led to the NTA revealing that students from six centres had been awarded grace marks, which were later done away with by a committee that recommended a re-test for around 1,500 students at these centres. There were also allegations of a paper leak from Bihar and Gujarat.

Following this, there was a demand from the Opposition parties to postpone the examination, with Congress leader Shashi Tharoor writing on social media platform X: “Given the allegations surrounding the conduct of NEET-UG exams, I urge the Government to postpone NEET-PG scheduled on June 23rd.”

The testing body was earlier confident of going ahead with the NEET-UG examination as informed by senior officials to The Indian Express earlier this week. In fact, the body has also issued a test day advisory on Friday. In another notice from the same day, the testing body said that people were befooling candidates online claiming they could provide questions for the PG entrance test. The notice said: “A routine surf was conducted by NBEMS officials and it came to light that certain persons are fraudulently trying to deceive NEET-PG candidates… claiming to provide NEET-PG questions… for a considerable amount of money. NBEMS has registered a police complaint against such fraudsters and their accomplices.”

The health ministry, in its statement on Saturday, said, “Taking into consideration, the recent incidents of allegations regarding the integrity of certain competitive examinations, Ministry of Health has decided to undertake a thorough assessment of the robustness of processes of NEET-PG Entrance Examination…”

The news, however, has led to dissatisfaction among many. Dr Manish Jangra, chief advisor and founder of Federation of All India Medical Association, said the announcement came very late when students had already booked their travel and stay. In addition, a delay in the PG tests may mean that many students would be left in limbo, unable to join a job as they would not be sure when the exam would happen and when they would be able to continue further studies, he said.

The anger also stems from the fact that there have been repeated delays in NEET-PG tests in the previous years owing to the pandemic, resulting in a massive strike in 2021.