Students line up outside a National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) PG exam centre in Thiruvananthapuram. File photo
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
Citing lack of transparency and alleged disparity between exam shifts doctors have approached the Union Health Ministry seeking urgent intervention and revision of the move to conduct this year’s National Eligibility-Entrance Test for Postgraduate (NEET-PG) exam in double shift.
The National Board of Examination in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) announced that it would conduct NEET PG 2025 in two shifts on June 15, 2025. While the first shift is scheduled from 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM, the second shift is scheduled from 3:30 PM to 7:00 PM.
In their letter to the Health Ministry doctors under the Indian Medical Association Junior Doctors’ Network (IMA-JDN) said that the decision to hold NEET PG 2024 in double shifts was taken citing lack of sufficient time to allocate the centres and ensure security protocols — “no such problem exists this year,’’ they said.
Doctors also pointed out last year even though NBEMS and the National Medical Council (NMC) brought in a normalisation process after doctors pointed out disparity between shifts the process was flawed.
Referring to the PG medical entrance exam held last year, IMA-JDN said that in NEET PG 2024 there were allegations regarding the disparity between the two shifts of the exam. “The primary issue with the two-shift model is the lack of transparency in the normalisation process. Last year, it was widely observed that Shift 2 was significantly more difficult, leading to disparities in scores and relative rankings. This not only affected the performance of deserving candidates but also created a sense of uncertainty and demoralisation,” the group noted in its letter.
National secretary of IMA-JDN standing committee, Indranil Deshmukh, explained there is serious concern for the 2 lakhs NEET-PG aspirants who may be subjected to the same issues as last year.
“NEET-PG 2025 is again being held in two shifts, despite the absence of any logistical urgency this year. The lack of transparency in the normalisation process, unequal difficulty levels across shifts, and denial of access to answer keys and response sheets have raised genuine concerns among candidates regarding the fairness of the process. We urge the authorities to consider conducting the exam in a single shift, ensure transparency in score calculation, and expand centres to all districts. A just and transparent process is essential to uphold the credibility of medical education and protect the aspirations of our young doctors,” said Dr. Deshmukh.
Doctors add that the reasons given to hold NEET-PG 2024 in two shifts last year included lack of sufficient time for centre allocation and ensuring security protocols, especially when the exam was rescheduled and over 2 lakh doctors were involved. “However, in the current year, there has been no such logistical constraint or last-minute change, and yet the exam is scheduled in two shifts—raising genuine concerns among aspirants,” the doctors noted, warning that these actions diminish the credibility of the examination process.
A few candidates who appeared in the second shift of the NEET PG 2024 exam had questioned the normalization formula adopted by NBEMS and further claimed that the board had scammed them in the name of a competitive exam. They pointed out that the Shift 2 paper was tougher compared to Shift 1 and further termed the process of calculating scores as debatable. These concerns were also raised before the Supreme Court, where the aspirants sought transparency in the NEET PG 2024 exam.
Published – April 19, 2025 10:58 am IST