The qualifying percentile for NEET SS admissions is set to fall sharply from the existing 50th percentile to 30th percentile, potentially bringing around 6,000 additional candidates into the counselling pool.
The decision comes after 1,857 super-speciality seats remained vacant following two rounds of counselling, prompting the Supreme Court to ask the Centre to reconsider its earlier decision against lowering the eligibility percentile criteria. The Centre subsequently informed the court that the reduced percentile would be applicable to a proposed Special Stray Vacancy Round.
The numbers point to a larger issue in India's super-speciality admission system: a significant number of seats in highly specialised medical and surgical disciplines remained unfilled even after two rounds of counselling.
According to the Centre's submission, the 1,857 vacant seats comprise 1,094 DM/MCh seats and 763 DrNB-SS seats. With the qualifying percentile reduced, the government expects approximately 6,000 candidates to become eligible for the special round — roughly three candidates for every vacant seat.
The reduction does not mean that every candidate who becomes newly eligible will receive a seat. It expands the pool of candidates who can participate in the special stray vacancy process.
The Centre has proposed that candidates who have already secured and joined a seat in earlier counselling rounds will not be allowed to participate for upgradation in the special round. The move is intended to prevent candidates from vacating already allotted seats and potentially creating another layer of vacancies.
The issue came before the Supreme Court amid concerns over the large number of vacant super-speciality seats.
Earlier in September, the court had asked the Centre to reconsider its decision of not reducing the qualifying percentile, noting that a substantial number of seats were continuing to remain vacant. At that stage, the Centre had maintained that it was prepared to conduct a special stray round without changing the qualifying criteria.
The subsequent reconsideration resulted in the Centre agreeing to bring the threshold down to the 30th percentile.
The stated objective, according to the government's submission, is to ensure that available super-speciality training capacity is not left unused.
Tamil Nadu's case has been an important part of the this issue.
The dispute began over super-speciality seats earmarked for in-service government doctors in the state. The Centre has now agreed that 40 vacant in-service seats will be returned to Tamil Nadu so that the state can conduct its own stray vacancy round.
Tamil Nadu will have one week to complete this state-level round. Any seats still vacant after that process will be returned to the national pool and considered along with other vacant seats in the MCC's special stray vacancy round.
The development is significant because the Tamil Nadu dispute was initially centred on the diversion of vacant in-service seats into the All India counselling pool. The Supreme Court proceedings subsequently brought the much wider problem of vacant NEET-SS seats into focus.