The Ministry of Health and Family Affairs (MoHFW), along with the National Medical Commission (NMC) has decided to not conduct any more counselling rounds for NEET Super Speciality for the year 2022-23. A notice about this was issued by the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) today, March 31, and has left many medicos disappointed.

The request for one more mop-up round for NEET-SS was put forth by the Federation of Resident Doctors' Association (FORDA), which was concerned about seats remaining vacant after the counselling. Initially, there were about 1,500 vacant seats, to fill which a mop-up round was urged for. However, even after this, about 900 seats still remained vacant. "So, we wrote to the MoHFW for another round," said Aviral Mathur, President of FORDA.

The letter, dated March 6, mentions, "We suggest that another mop-up round be considered in the larger interest of students and citizens who stand to benefit immensely from having more super speciality doctors in the country." It also points out several students have approached the Supreme Court seeking relief in this regard.

However, the Centre decided against it. "The reason has not been stated, but logistics might have been the issue. We are highly disappointed, as this is not only a loss to the students, but also to healthcare and to the country," Mathur said. "The Supreme Court had previously observed that SS seats were assets to the country. Now those assets are being wasted. If they were filled, more doctors would have been produced to serve the people," he added.

The president laments that with the government's decision, the hopes of several aspirants for a seat in Super Speciality courses are dashed. "We used to receive queries and requests from them every day for another round of counselling. Now they would have to wait another year," he says.