Kamal Ghorui
There is much outrage in the medical community that the cut off for NEET PG 2025 has been reduced to zero percentile for the reserved category, which is equivalent to a score of minus 40. However, this is not the first time a score of minus 40 was good enough to qualify. The cut off was similarly reduced to zero percentile in 2023 for all categories and then too the equivalent score was minus 40.In 2023, when the medical counselling committee announced the reduction to zero percentile, it did not reveal that this was equivalent to a score of minus 40. TOI had analysed the NEET scores and pointed out that zero percentile meant 14 candidates who scored zero marks, 13 with negative marks and the one getting the lowest mark of -40 out of 800 would also qualify. In 2025, there are 126 candidates who have scored zero or less. Zero percentile means the lowest score or that none of the candidates got less. In 2023 and in 2025, one candidate got the lowest score of -40.Interestingly, in July 2022, in response to a petition filed by three students seeking lower cut off, the government had stated in court that “minimum qualifying percentile for admission is required to be maintained to ensure minimum standard of education and general standards for admission to professional courses”. Taking the government’s argument into consideration, the court dismissed the petition and ruled against lowering the standards of medical education as it “involves in its ambit the matter of life and death”.In 2023, govt officials were quoted in news reports justifying lowering the cut off to zero as a one-time measure to fill vacant PG seats. However, this has become a regular feature with cut offs being lowered to abysmal levels every year. About 2 lakh to 2.3 lakh students appear for NEET PG for over 70,000 seats (about 57,000 MD/MS seats and the rest are DNB and PG diploma seats). However, the seats in private medical colleges remain vacant as the fees for clinical subjects in many of them runs into crores which most candidates cannot afford. Lowering the cut off increases the pool of ‘qualified’ candidates and improves the chance of finding candidates with deep pockets who can afford the fees even if they have rock bottom scores.“To lower NEET PG qualifying marks to abysmal level is driven solely by commercial considerations. This decision ‘reserves’ post-graduate medical seats to the rich and mighty in commercial fiefdoms called private medical colleges. This is shameful and must be condemned as unadulterated corruption,” tweeted former principal health secretary of Andhra Pradesh Dr PV Ramesh.
