NEET-PG Eligibility Eased Leads to Surprisingly Low Scores Securing Medical PG Seats
In an unexpected development in medical admissions, the minimum eligibility standards for the NEET-PG exam were significantly relaxed this year, resulting in postgraduate seats at government medical colleges being allotted to candidates with very low scores — in some cases even single digits out of 800.
During the third round of counselling for the 2025-26 academic cycle, several clinical and non-clinical courses saw seats go to aspirants with exceptionally low marks. For instance, an orthopaedics postgraduate position in Rohtak was filled by someone who scored only 4 marks. Similarly, candidates with 44 and 47 marks have been placed in core specialties such as obstetrics & gynaecology and general surgery at reputable institutions.
This trend has sparked debate within the medical community. Experts warn that drastically reducing the cutoff may weaken the overall standard of postgraduate medical education and could potentially affect patient care quality in the long term. Critics argue that eligibility criteria play a key role in ensuring students possess sufficient foundational knowledge before entering advanced clinical training.
The change in qualification norms stems from a decision by authorities to reduce or remove cutoff percentiles across categories for this admission cycle, a move aimed at filling vacant seats after earlier rounds of counselling failed to match many posts with candidates. Officials maintain that merit ranking still drives final seat allocation, and that rigorous training and subsequent exit examinations should uphold competency.
However, medical educators point out deeper systemic issues, such as rapid expansion of seats without proportional growth in teaching capacity, which compound challenges in maintaining training quality. They caution that easy entry thresholds could have repercussions for healthcare standards if not paired with stronger academic and clinical oversight.