Several doctors and doctors' associations in India have requested Union Health Minister JP Nadda to intervene and guarantee that the forthcoming National Eligibility-Entrance Test for Postgraduate (PG) is administered in a single shift, highlighting its defining nature.
In a letter to the Union Health Minister, the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) stated that the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare stopped the multiple-shift arrangement in 2017 for reasons of fairness, transparency, and uniformity.
"The rationale was clear: conducting such a crucial national-level examination in a single shift ensures that all candidates receive the same question paper, thereby creating an equitable platform for every aspiring doctor in India," the association said in its letter.
FAIMA stated that administering the exam in numerous shifts promotes variation in difficulty levels and subject-specific question distribution.
"This inevitably leads to the use of normalization methods, which have consistently raised concerns among aspirants regarding their reliability and fairness. The variation in question types and difficulty between shifts has been observed and reported in previous years, leading to anxiety, dissatisfaction, and, at times, legal challenges-all of which could delay the admission process," the association pointed out.
The association added, "Given that NEET PG is a defining examination that determines the future of lakhs of young doctors, it is imperative to conduct it in the most transparent and uniform manner possible."
It also mentioned how a single-shift exam would preserve the credibility of the results and enhance trust in the system.
As a result, the association urged the ministry to direct the National Board of Examinations (NBE) to continue administering the NEET-PG exam in a single shift to ensure the exam's uniformity, fairness, and transparency.
Recently, the Indian Medical Association Junior Doctors' Network (IMA-JDN) requested the Union Health Minister's action in this matter.
According to Medical Dialogues, doctors across the country were dissatisfied with the conduct of the next NEET-PG 2025 exam, which was declared by the NBEMS to be held in two shifts on June 15, 2025. The first shift is planned from 9.00 pm to 12.30 pm, and the second shift from 3.30 pm to 7.00 pm.
The doctors emphasised their primary worries about the normalisation process. Despite the fact that the normalisation algorithm was adopted for NEET-PG 2024 to ensure justice by adjusting scores across different exam shifts, critics claim that the procedure is defective.
