Low NEET PG scores secure seats across clinical and surgical branches

NEET PG counselling for the 2025–26 academic session has recorded postgraduate seat allotments in government medical colleges at unusually low scores across several disciplines, including clinical and surgical branches.

The pattern was most evident in the third counselling round, with seats allotted at single-digit and low double-digit marks. Counselling data shows an MS Orthopaedics seat at a government medical institute in Rohtak was allotted at 4 marks out of 800.

In Delhi government colleges, obstetrics and gynecology and general surgery seats were allotted at 44 and 47 marks, respectively.

Other low cutoffs included 10 marks in transfusion medicine, 11 marks in anatomy, and negative scores in biochemistry, particularly under reserved and persons with disabilities categories, as reported by one of the leading news agency.

These allotments followed the Union Health Ministry’s decision to lower NEET PG qualifying cutoffs across categories to prevent postgraduate seats from remaining vacant, marking a shift from earlier admission benchmarks.

The counselling process has also raised questions over the use of the Economically Weaker Section quota in postgraduate admissions.

An online educational guidance platform alleged that about 145 EWS reserved seats in deemed and private universities were taken by candidates who paid very high fees outside the standard merit-based allotment, including one cited payment of around ₹4.23 crore for an MD seat under the quota.