New Delhi: A sharp and unprecedented lowering of NEET-PG qualifying cut-offs for the 2025-26 academic session has triggered widespread concern across India’s medical community, after government medical college seats, including in high-risk clinical and surgical specialties, were allotted to candidates with shockingly low scores, in some cases in single digits and even negative marks.
The impact of the decision became glaringly visible during the third round of postgraduate counselling, where candidates secured seats in both clinical and non-clinical disciplines with scores ranging from minus marks to double digits. In one of the most alarming instances, an MS Orthopaedics seat at a government medical institute in Rohtak was allotted to a candidate who scored just 4 marks out of 800. Obstetrics and Gynaecology, a core clinical branch dealing directly with maternal and neonatal lives, was allotted at 44 marks in a premier Delhi medical college, while General Surgery was filled at 47 marks.
Other allocations raised similar red flags. Seats were filled at 10 marks in Transfusion Medicine, 11 marks in Anatomy, and even minus 8 marks in Biochemistry, particularly under reserved and PwD categories. While the revised cut-offs ensured that postgraduate seats did not remain vacant, doctors and medical educators warn that the policy reflects a dangerous compromise of academic and clinical competence.
“This signals a serious breakdown in medical education and workforce planning,” said a senior faculty member at a government medical college. “Orthopaedics has traditionally been among the most demanding surgical specialties. Filling such a seat at near-zero marks does not reflect weaker students alone, it reflects a system under severe strain.”
The situation arose after the Union Health Ministry drastically reduced NEET-PG qualifying percentiles across categories, allowing candidates with extremely low, and even negative, scores to qualify. Critics argue that while addressing seat vacancies is a legitimate concern, eliminating meaningful entry thresholds in a profession that directly deals with human life is reckless.
Medical professionals have been particularly vocal about the risks posed to patient safety. “Marks as low as 4, 11 or 44 out of 800 points to a lack of basic aptitude,” said a senior doctor. “Removing cut-offs altogether is not administrative reform, it is a direct threat to patient safety.”
The move marks a sharp reversal of the government’s earlier stance. In July 2022, while opposing a plea to lower NEET-PG cut-offs in the Delhi High Court, the Centre had argued that minimum qualifying percentiles were essential to maintain educational standards. The court had agreed, cautioning that dilution of standards in medical education could “wreak havoc,” given that medicine involves matters of life and death.
Defending the current framework, senior health ministry officials argue that competence should be ensured through rigorous training and exit examinations rather than entry cut-offs alone. They maintain that postgraduate seats are allotted strictly as per revised eligibility norms, and that medical colleges, certified by regulators, are responsible for failing unsuitable candidates.
However, medical educators say this argument ignores ground realities. “Without strong faculty, robust exit exams, and the political will to actually fail incompetent students, anyone who enters medicine eventually gets a degree,” said a senior academician. “Exit exams are weak, faculty are overstretched, and institutions face immense pressure to pass students.”
Experts point to deeper structural issues plaguing medical education, rapid expansion of PG seats without a proportional increase in trained faculty, overcrowded hospitals, erosion of bedside teaching, and growing dependence on online learning modules. Faculty members report that many postgraduate entrants now lack strong theoretical foundations, basic clinical skills, and professional discipline.
“Easy entry has reduced seriousness even at top institutions,” said another doctor, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Numbers are increasing, but training quality is steadily declining, and that will have long-term consequences for patient care.”
Doctors caution that the damage caused by diluted standards may not be immediately visible. Medicine, they note, does not reveal its failures instantly. The consequences may surface years later, when inadequately trained specialists practise independently, potentially undermining patient safety and eroding public trust in the healthcare system.
