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Journalism of Courage
The Supreme Court today dismissed the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test – Post Graduate (NEET PG) 2023 postponement plea, leaving aspirants disappointed and worried. The examination will be conducted as per schedule on March 5.
Today, the ASG Aishwarya Bhati told the Supreme Court today that the postponement demand is only by a minority number of students. “In the first window, nearly 2.03 lakh students applied. Only 6000 students applied after the internship deadline was extended,” ASG said. After listening to both sides, the bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Dipankar Datta denied the request to postpone the entrance test and refused to hear any pleas seeking postponement of NEET PG 2023.
However, this decision has left aspirants disappointed. “Just like me, several other aspirants had high hopes from the Supreme Court. We had thought that if not NBE then at least the Supreme Court will hear our plea and understand the problems that their future doctors of this country are facing,” Abhishek Choudhary, a NEET PG aspirant from Saharanpur, who is interning at the Muzaffarnagar Medical College till May.
Some students have also said that they do not have enough time to prepare for the exam now. “There were several students who were not eligible for the exam earlier due to the cut-off problem. They fought for that earlier, and then spent time on ensuring that their plea of postponement is heard by the authorities. We spent so much time making all of this come true and we had trust in the justice system of India. But we are left with no time now, and the Court has disappointed us completely,” Sakshi Singh, an intern at HIMS Varanasi and NEET PG aspirant, told indianexpress.com.
Just like Abhishek and Neha, there are several candidates whose internship is still going on and they claim they have not had enough time to prepare because of this. “My internship will end on April 10. I have my hospital duty for almost 20-24 hours on a daily basis and this leaves me with no time to prepare for the NEET PG exam. Right now, I am having to prepare for the exam and do my hospital duty diligently at the same time. This has not only just caused extra stress for me, but has also left me with no time to actually study,” said Lakhan Prakash Gupta, who is currently pursuing an internship from Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).
Candidates are also alleging that the NBE failed to take suggestions from state authorities and other medical institutes. “Health ministry had no ground report on when the exam should be conducted. They did not take any advice from states and institutes about internship eligibility dates, and we can see that in the fact that they changed the internship cut-off date twice after the original announcement. This shows lack of management and accountability on the part of NBE,” Choudhary added.
The NBE had released admit cards today morning, however several candidates had taken to Twitter to warn fellow aspirants against downloading the hall tickets. Candidates claimed that the NBE released admit cards simply to prove in the top court that the candidates have no issues with the exam date. “I did not download the admit card in the morning because we knew the NBE was trying to prove to the Supreme Court that we were fine with the exam date, which is not the case. I tried downloading it now, but the website is down due to heavy traffic,” Singh said.
Choudhary also added that his examination centre is over two hours drive away from his home town. “I reside in Saharanpur and my examination centre is in Meerut. If I object, they will simply ask me to drive there early morning, without realising how stressful it is to appear for such a big exam in a different city.”
