NEW DELHI: Counselling for NEET post-graduate admission will begin from January 12, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Sunday. “NEET-PG counselling is being started by MCC from January 12, 2022, following the order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court, as assured by the Ministry of Health to the resident doctors. This will give more strength to the country in the fight against Covid-19. My best wishes to all the candidates,” the health minister tweeted.
The announcement comes two days after the apex court, in an interim order, allowed resumption of medical counselling for NEET-PG admissions for 2021-22. On January 7, the top court also upheld the validity of 27 per cent OBC and 10 per cent EWS quotas.
The NEET-PG exam was held on September 11, 2021, after being rescheduled twice in January and April. The results were declared in the last week of September following which students for nearly 45,000 postgraduate seats were waiting for the counselling to begin.
Resident doctors of various medical colleges across the entire country last month held protests and boycotted work demanding expedition of the counselling. On January 7, the Supreme Court stated that there was an “urgent need” to begin the admission process. The criteria for the determination of EWS notified by the office memorandum 2019, including `8 lakh annual income criterion, will be used for identifying the EWS category for candidates, who appeared for the NEET-PG 2021 and NEET-UG 2021 examinations, it had said.
However, the top court specified that the validity of the criteria determined by the Committee for identification of EWS would prospectively for the future be subject to the final result of the petitions challenging the previous order.
The Federation of Resident Doctors’ Association (FORDA) had said that every year approximately 45,000 candidates are selected as post graduate (PG) doctors through the NEET-PG and delay in counselling has led to a situation where no junior doctors have been inducted 2021. Second and third-year PG doctors are handling patients and are facing increased workload due to the pandemic, FORDA had said.