National Board of Examinations: Decision to relax eligibility criteria for postgraduate medical courses
Maharashtra: The National Board of Medical Examination has reduced the eligibility criteria for admission to MD, MS, DNB courses to 15 per cent, so that more and more students can take admission in postgraduate medical courses. This will provide opportunities to students pursuing postgraduate medical education. The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-PG) was conducted in two sessions on August 11, 2024 for admission to postgraduate medical courses. The results of this examination were declared on August 23, 2024. The admission process for 2,510 seats of postgraduate medical course in the state started from November 29. The first round of postgraduate courses in the state was held on November 29.
The second round was implemented from December 24. In two rounds, students have taken admission in 1,694 seats for this course, leaving 816 seats vacant. To ensure that more students get admission to postgraduate medical courses, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has decided to reduce the minimum qualifying percentile of NEET-PG 2024. Accordingly, the National Board of Examination for Medical Sciences has decided to change the eligibility criteria required for the admission process of postgraduate courses like MD, MS, DNB. With this decision, the percentile of general and economically backward class students has been reduced from 50 to 15. Also, the percentile of Divyang students has been reduced from 45 to 10. The percentile of SC, ST and OBC students has been reduced from 40 to 10.
These criteria are likely to be implemented from the next third round. With this decision, more and more students will be eligible for admission to postgraduate courses. Therefore, most of the vacant seats are likely to be filled in the third round and there is likely to be competition among students for admission in the third round. Earlier, the National Medical Commission had decided to relax the eligibility criteria by 15 percentile for Ayurveda, Unani and Homeopathy degree courses under the AYUSH curriculum. This cleared the way for admission of many students. Reducing the eligibility criteria by 15 percentile for MD, MS, DNB courses in postgraduate courses will give an opportunity to students pursuing postgraduate medical education to get admission.
