NEET counselling for post-graduation seats to begin on Jan 12

Days after the Supreme Court ended the stalemate over admissions to NEET post-graduate programmes for the academic year 2021-22, the government announced that the counselling process will commence from January 12.

“As per the assurance given by the Ministry of Health to the resident doctors, following the order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court, the NEET-PG counselling will be started by the MCC [Medical Counselling Committee] from January 12, 2022,” Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said in a tweet on Sunday. “This will give more strength to the country in the fight against Corona. My best wishes to all the candidates.”

रेसीडेंट डॉक्टरस को स्वास्थ्य मंत्रालय द्वारा दिए आश्वासन अनुसार, माननीय सर्वोच्च न्यायालय के आदेश के बाद MCC द्वारा NEET-PG काउन्सलिंग 12 जनवरी 2022 से शुरू की जा रही है।

इससे कोरोना से लड़ाई में देश को और मज़बूती मिलेगी। सभी उम्मीदवारों को मेरी शुभकामनाएं।

— Dr Mansukh Mandaviya (@mansukhmandviya) January 9, 2022

On Friday, the Supreme Court in an interim order directed that counselling for NEET-PG programmes may proceed on the basis of the July 29, 2021 government notification by which 10 per cent seats were reserved for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) and 27 per cent for Other Backward Classes (OBC) candidates.

Meanwhile, the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS), which conducts NEET, announced that the individual score card for NEET-PG 2021 for all-India seats will be released on Sunday evening.

“Individual score card for NEET-PG 2021 All India 50% quota seats will be available for download at NEET-PG website https://nbe.edu.in from 9th January 2022 onwards,” the NBE said.

NBEMS had declared the NEET PG 2021 result on September 28 last year and the counselling process was supposed to begin in October but was delayed due to a stay imposed by the SC following a bunch of petitions challenging the government’s July 29 notification.

Resident doctors had protested against the delay in NEET-PG counselling, with the Federation of Resident Doctors’ Association (FORDA) leading a protest that affected healthcare services in big hospitals in the national Capital such as Safdarjung, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, Lady Hardinge and associated hospitals. The doctors began their protest in November-end, suspended the agitation for a week on December 9, before resuming the protest on December 17. On December 31, following assurances from the government that the process would be fast-tracked, they finally called off the agitation.

Delivering the order on Friday, a Supreme Court bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and A S Bopanna also accepted the recommendation of the Ajay Bhushan Pandey Committee to stick to the prescribed Rs 8 lakh income limit for EWS quota for the current admission cycle.

“There is an urgent need to commence the process of counselling,” said the bench. “We accept the recommendation of the Pandey Committee that the criteria which has been stipulated in OM (office memorandum) 2019 (for EWS) (which prescribed the Rs 8 lakh limit) be used for 2021-2022 in order to ensure that the admission process is not dislocated,” the bench said.