NEET 2019: To fill 2000 vacant seats, PG cut-off lowered by six percentile

The qualifying marks for National Eligibility Entrance Test(NEET-PG) 2019-2020 has been reduced by 6 percentile by the health ministry in consultation with the Medical Council of India(MCI).

"The decision has been taken to fill 2000 seats that were left vacant after the conclusion of the second round of counselling," says VK Paul, chairman, MCI, adding that similar measures were taken last year to fill the vacancies.

The cut-off for NEET was lowered by 15 percentile last year. However, this year we have taken a more calibrated approach and only lowered it by six percentile to ensure that the quality of candidates is not compromised, says Paul.

For the vacant seats around 9000 more aspirants can attend last round of counselling with 30000 candidates who passed the initial cut-off but have yet not opted for these seats.

Mostly the vacant seats are in pre and para-clinical seats in Microbiology, Anatomy, Pathology, Physiology, Forensic Medicine, etc, which Paul says "are important disciplines that produce academics, innovators, entrepreneurs, and researchers."

"Most students do not consider these areas as lucrative and we want to attract more students to opt for these disciplines which form the backbone of the profession<" adds Paul.

Following are the qualifying criteria for admission in postgraduate medical courses for 2019-20.

1 General category candidate- 44 percentile

2 Disability category candidate- 39 percentile

3 SC/ST/OBC category candidate- 34 percentile

For MD/MS admissions, all the state counselling authorities have been advised to granted admissions on a revised cut-off percentile basis.

Candidates interested in the NEET PG 2019 counselling on May 13 can download their updated scorecards from the official website nbe.edu.