Just a few days after a leaked “confidential notice” issued by the National Board of Examination for Medical Sciences (NBEMS) stirred a controversy on social media, it seems another such official document has made its way to the public domain now, less than a week before the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test- Postgraduate (NEET-PG) exam is to be conducted.

This time, a document which seems to be a list of exam centres in Gujarat has started to do rounds on social media.

Netizens have raised concerns about the competence of exam authorities in conducting the national-level entrance examination, especially after the NEET-UG paper leak row. The medical community also opined that these leaks of official documents can eventually lead to more irregularities in the exam process.

Speaking about this, health activist Dr Vivek Pandey told EdexLive, “Earlier, the document that was leaked was clearly labelled ‘confidential’. Now, a list of exam centres has reached social media. Usually, information like exam centres are not given out in the public domain until admit cards are released as it could lead to several issues like centre fixing, it could be targeted by scammers and paper leak mafias. They can try to hack into the centre's remote servers. That is the reason that admit cards are not released until a few days before the exam. These leaks suggest that the sanctity of the exam could be hampered.”

These concerns come at a time when instances of paper leaks, impersonation and other such irregularities already marred the NEET-UG exam. In fact, the NEET-PG exam, which was earlier scheduled to be conducted on June 23, was postponed to a later date of August 11 in the light of the NEET-UG paper leak row.

Now, the exam is scheduled to be conducted on Sunday, August 11, in two shifts.

However, the postgraduate entrance exam has received its fair share of controversies as several aspirants have complained that they were allotted cities several kilometres away from their hometowns.

Now, these alleged official documents circulating on social media have stirred a new controversy among the medical community.

“The question now is how are these official documents getting leaked? I have raised this question on social media, tagging NBE and Union Health Minister JP Nadda as well,” said Dr Pandey.