Rank-based merit to fees: Panel proposes changes in NEET-PG

An expert panel set up by the Union health ministry proposed on Tuesday sweeping changes in the national postgraduate medical entrance examination, including replacing the existing percentile-based qualifying system with a rank-based merit system, reducing fees for non-clinical courses, revising medical residents’ stipends, and preventing seat blocking through biometric verification.

Aspirants coming out after appeared in the NEET PG 2026 examination at an examination centre. ( Santosh Kumar/ Hindustan Times)In an affidavit filed by the Union health ministry before the Supreme Court, the panel also recommended no salary discrimination between clinical and non-clinical branches, increments after super-speciality, and incentives for those working in rural areas, while noting that health is a state subject under the Constitution.

“NMC is in the process of issuing new regulations, which are yet to be finalised wherein only rank-based system for NEET-PG and NEET-SS counselling will be adopted, no percentile marks will be declared in results, only ranks will be given to candidates,” the affidavit said, referring to the National Medical Commission, India’s apex medical regulatory body.

“The sanctity of NEET examinations should be maintained and minimum qualifying standards in postgraduate medical education is not diluted to the extent of permitting candidates with grossly inadequate or negative performance to become eligible for admission.

The significance of competitive examinations should not be reduced to an administrative formality,” the affidavit added. The affidavit was filed by Dr Praveen Kumar Dass, Assistant Director General, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, MoHFW, “We have made these reforms in the interest of the candidates...The new reforms will also reduce the counselling time and which will subsequently help candidates to start their academic session on time,” an official aware of the matter from DGHS, said.

A senior NMC official, aware of the matter, said, “The proposal in principle is approved. However, we will wait for the court’s final directions to go ahead for the new reforms, once that happens the next process is to get stakeholders suggestions for the implementation of reforms.” The proposed reforms are targeted for implementation from the 2027 counselling cycle, subject to finalisation of regulations and necessary approvals.

For the upcoming 2027 cycle, the expert panel and the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) have outlined targeted operational guidelines to completely digitise the admission architecture. The National Eligibility cum Entrance Exam (NEET), postgraduate – distinct from the NEET-UG exam – was taken by 265,980candidates to fill 63,177 postgraduate medical seats for 2026-27.

It also called for online sharing of NEET-PG and other medical entrance examination results with state counselling authorities, digitising the counselling process with minimum human intervention, and ensuring that the National Medical Commission (NMC) shares an updated and verified seat matrix with the MCC well before counselling begins.

In 2025, the exam was held on August 3, 2025,and taken by 230,114candidates. The first tworounds of counselling were completed by December 28. But on January 13, 2026, the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) – the autonomous body under the Union health ministry that conducts NEET-PG and declares its results– lowered the qualifying percentile for reserved categories to zero, making candidates scoring as low as minus 40 out of 800 eligible for admission.

For candidates belonging to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes, the qualifying percentile was reduced from the prescribed 40th percentile (235 marks out of 800) to zero percentile (minus 40 marks).

For general and Economically Weaker Section candidates, it was reduced from the 50th percentile (276 marks) to the seventh percentile (103 marks) to fill around 18,000 vacant postgraduate seats after the second round of counselling.

The decision to lower the qualifying cut-offs followed concerns over vacant postgraduate medical seats. After the first round of NEET-PG 2025 counselling on November 21, around 18,000 seats remained vacant. The second round, held on December 17, left approximately 9,000 seats vacant.

At a December 30 meeting, officials of the Union health ministry and the National Medical Commission discussed the anticipated vacancies and decided to relax the qualifying percentile to expand the pool of candidates eligible for the third round.

The following day, NBEMS issued the revised cut-off notification. The decision sparked a controversy and social worker Harisharan Devgan and doctors Saurav Kumar, Lakshya Mittal and Akash Soni approached the Supreme Court on January 16.

The petition challenged the NBEMS notice dated January 13, 2026, which reduced the qualifying cut-offs for the third round of NEET-PG 2025-26 counselling. The petitioners argued that allowing candidates with zero or negative scores to become eligible for postgraduate medical admissions diluted minimum standards, compromised merit and could affect patient safety and public health.

The petition sought quashing of the January 13 NBEMS notification and stay on counselling being conducted under the revised cut-offs. The Supreme Court issued notice on the petition on February 4 and on February 6, asking the Centre to file an affidavit explaining the rationale for the reduction.

The bench said there had to be a balance between preventing seats from going vacant and maintaining standards in medical education. On February 23, it said the government would have to satisfy it that the drastic reduction, which had “virtually” brought the cut-off to zero, would not affect the quality of medical education.

Following the Supreme Court’s May 4 directions to create an institutional mechanism to examine recurring issues in the NEET-PG admission process, the Union health ministry...