The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has written a letter to Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya requesting him to reschedule the NEET PG examination scheduled to be held on May 21, 2022.
In a letter, the IMA said the NEET-PG 2021 was held five months after the scheduled date in the month of September 2021. Then the counselling scheduled to begin from October 25th, 2021 was also initiated (in January 2022) after a delay due to pending decision on seat reservations and was further delayed owning to Supreme Court ruling of March 31, 2022 which ordered cancellation and conduct of special round of counselling for the mop-up round.
“As a result of the delayed counselling schedule, NEET PG 2022 was deferred from April 2022 to May 2022, so that the candidates could appear for the final stray vacancy round of NEET PG 2021 and can still have plenty of time for preparation and reappearance for the next NEET PG 2022 exam, if they failed to secure a seat this year. However, the AIQ Counselling anticipated to be completed by the end of March 2022, is still in process and is uncertain if it will end by May 7. Several States will also be finishing the counseling around the middle of May 2022,” the IMA added in the letter.
“The difference between NEET PG examination date and completion of 2021 counselling is too short for an aspirant to prepare and appear for an extremely difficult examination like NEET-PG,” the IMA wrote.
The association said another innocent five to ten thousand interns, who served as COVID warriors during COVID-19 pandemic, are ineligible to appear for NEET-PG due to delay in completion of their final examination and consequently their internship beyond eligibility criteria set for the examination.