E-Paper
Candidate shortage: Cut-off lowered by 25 percentile to fill vacant PG seats in Punjab medical colleges
Union Ministry Of Health And Family Welfare has lowered the qualifying cut-off percentile for NEET-PG by 25 percentile for each category (general, SC, ST, OBC and handicapped).
Facing shortage of eligible candidates to fill about 364 postgraduate medical seats laying vacant in seven medical colleges in the state, the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) at Faridkot has lowered the minimum qualifying marks and percentile for admission to these seats following directions of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
The Union Ministry Of Health And Family Welfare has lowered the qualifying cut-off percentile for NEET-PG by 25 percentile for each category (general, SC, ST, OBC and handicapped). 334 of the total 504 MD, MS state quota seats remained vacant after the first round of counselling conducted by the BFUHS. There are total 533 PG seats including MD, MS and PG diploma courses in the government and private medical colleges.
The qualifying percentile for the MD, MS and other PG courses has been lowered from 50 to 25 for the general category. For the SC/BC and handicapped candidates, the qualifying percentile has been reduced from 40 to 15 and 45 to 20, respectively.
The cut-off score for the general category candidates has been reduced from 275 to 201 marks. For the SC/ST and handicapped candidates, the revised cut-off score lowered from 245 to 169 and 260 to 186 marks, respectively.
Former vice-chancellor of BFUHS Dr SS Gill said that that the university has lowered the cut-off percentile for MD and MS courses on the directions of the union government, but this will adversely impact quality of doctors.
“The cut-off percentile should not be below 50 as below average students cannot become proficient doctors. There is need that focus should be on quality of the doctors not filling seats in private colleges,” said former V-C Dr Raj Bahadur
