NEET PG 2022 seat matrix clarified: To what capacity are NMC's last-minute guidelines affecting students?

As the seat matrix for the counseling for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Postgraduation (NEET PG) was made available on the official website of the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC), students noticed that there was a dearth of seats in non-clinical courses.

“This year seats in non-clinical courses have reduced by 8-12%,” says career consultant and analyst, Jayaprakash Gandhi. Here’s the crux of the matter. Even as the MCC has commenced choice filling for seats by candidates from September 20, the seat matrix continues to be updated. Students have lambasted this scenario, with some calling it a joke, that the MCC is proceeding with counselling before the final seat matrix is available to the students.

However, they have noticed that the number of seats available to them has taken a dive, even though the NMC had announced that 371 new medical seats were being added to government, private, and deemed medical universities this year.

Experts attribute this to the last-minute inspections carried out by the NMC to decide if these colleges are capable of offering postgraduate medical education. This process ended up derecognizing seats that had earlier been declared by the NMC.

Sources suggest that this last-minute inspection also caused a delay in the start of the counselling for the NEET PG
“Seats had been increased in a few colleges this year and NMC also issues a circular in this regard. And yet, we did not find them in the seat matrix. NMC should not have approved those seats if they were not going to be uploaded on the website. There is an absolute lack of clarity in the process,” says Dr Karthik Nagula, State President of the Telangana Junior Doctors Association (JUDA).