The NEET PG cut-off percentile was reduced to minus 40 on Wednesday amid widespread criticism. The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences greenlit the change for SC, ST, and OBC candidates amid continued efforts to fill vacant seats in colleges. This will allow additional candidates to appear for counselling ahead of the 2025-26 academic session — with seats still being allocated on the basis of ranking.
According to the latest instructions, cut-off score for the general and EWS categories now stands at 103 out of 800. The number has been reduced further to 90 for the general PwBD category. All SC, ST and OBC candidates will require a qualifying score of -40 to join the third round of counselling.
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How does the NEET cutoff work?
NEET-PG is an entrance test to rank candidates and ensure merit-based allocation of seats within medical colleges through centralised counselling. It follows a percentile scoring method — wherein individual performance is contrasted against the overall results to arrive at scores.
Put more simply, the highest scorer in the NEET-PG exam (for each shift/question paper) gets a 100th percentile. The rankings are calculated relative to peers and eventually translates into an all-India list. Ties at the same percentile are broken using predefined criteria — that ranges from scores and overall accuracy to age and application number.
Questions answered accurately during the NEET exam garner the candidate four marks, while a wrong answer incurs a negative marking of one point. Un-attempted questions result in a zero score. A high negative score is recorded when wrong answers significantly outnumber accurate ones.
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‘Unprecedented, illogical move’
Several sections of the medical community have termed the move “unprecedented and illogical” — warning that it may compromise the quality of healthcare delivery as serious concerns are raised about the quality of future specialists. Doctors’ groups such as Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) and Federation of Doctors Association (FORDA) have already written to Health Minister JP Nadda and called for the notification to be withdrawn.
FAIMA president Dr Rohan Krishnan said reducing the percentile to zero sets a dangerous precedent for the future of India’s medical education system. He also cautioned that such a drastic reduction was creating an impression that conducting a national competitive examination like NEET-PG may soon become redundant, as admissions could be granted irrespective of merit, rank, or eligibility.
“This decision raises serious concerns about the quality of future specialists and poses a direct threat to patient safety and public health, particularly affecting the poor and vulnerable sections of society who depend on government and teaching hospitals,” the FAIMA said. |
