In a letter to Union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor expressed grave concerns on the difficulties NEET-PG applicants encounter.
In a letter to Union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda on Thursday, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor expressed concerns about the challenges NEET-PG applicants experience, such as transportation and exam center accessibility.
According to Tharoor, the NEET PG applicants are encountering difficulties with transportation because of the exam’s planned sites, which require some applicants to travel hundreds of kilometers. According to him, the unfavorable weather, problems with ticket availability, and a lack of reasonably priced lodging are making matters worse.
“Given the manageable number of candidates, we ought to be able to authorize enough centers in every state if we are going to have national exams. This would allow candidates to take the exam from centers that are easily accessible from their places of residence or education,” stated the top Congress lawmaker.
Additionally, he criticized the choice to deliver the test in two shifts with distinct papers, arguing that in order to ensure uniformity and fairness, a nationwide exam should ideally be administered in a single shift across all sites.
According to Tharoor, “the entire concept of a national examination is vitiated unless it is one test on one date everywhere in India.”
“The reports that the number of cities where the tests are to be conducted has been significantly reduced are exacerbating all of this,” he continued.
NEET-PG postponement
One day before it was supposed to take place, on June 22, the National Board of Examination in Medical Sciences (NBEMS), in collaboration with TCS, announced the cancellation of the NEET-PG 2024.
Dr. Abhijat Sheth, President of NBEMS, defended the exam’s existing setup, stating that the test is being conducted in two shifts to remove any chance of malpractice and that private entrepreneur colleges have been excluded for NEET-PG 2024 centers for better supervision.
e no TCS iON/AICTE accredited colleges available, a few private entrepreneur centers have been brought in, Dr. Sheth said PTI.
“We have ensured that the students are issued exam centers in the same state as per their given address while filling up forms, to the best extent possible,” he stated.
2,28,542 students will take the NEET-PG exam nationwide at 416 testing locations spread across 170 cities. The test will be administered in two shifts, and the applicants’ results will be averaged. The centers that TCS deemed to be high-risk according to their audit have been taken from the list.
In the meanwhile, the Supreme Court decided to hear a case on Friday asking for the NEET-PG 2024 test to be postponed. The plea said that students had been assigned to places that would be extremely difficult for them to travel to and that this necessitated the normalization of scores.
On Thursday, a bench made up of Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, together with Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, noted the arguments made by attorney Anas Tanwir.
