Counselling for NEET-UG to begin after July 3rd week: Government

NEW DELHI: NEET-UG counselling, the process for allotment of seats to successful candidates based on their exam score, will start after the third week of July, govt said on Saturday.
The clarification came in the wake of allegations that the govt had deferred the counselling process, which was scheduled to commence on Saturday. It said since no date has been fixed, the question of deferment of the process did not arise.As the opposition, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, attacked the govt on the issue, govt said that even last year NEET-UG counselling began on July 20.
“The counselling schedule for NEET-UG and PG is announced by the Medical Counselling Committee on its website on the basis of completion of the exam process and finalisation of the seat matrix by the National Medical Commission. For the year 2024, NMC has communicated its schedule for finalisation of the seat matrix for UG and PG seats in the last week of June, indicating that it will finalise the UG seat matrix by third week of July and PG seat matrix by mid-August. MCC will accordingly notify the counselling schedules.”
The NEET seat matrix provides students with information regarding the state-wise distribution of seats, cutoff scores, and courses each medical institution provides.
The NEET-UG exam has been mired in controversy this year due to an alleged paper leak. Several arrests have been made by CBI, which is probing the case.
Supreme Court is also seized of the matter as multiple petitions have been filed before it, including those seeking cancellation of the exam and a court-monitored probe. The next hearing on the matter is likely on Monday.
Sources said pendency of the case could be one of the reasons behind the delay in announcement of the NEET-UG counselling schedule. Normally, when a matter is sub judice and the case is likely to be taken up in the coming few days, the govt and its authorities prefer to wait for the court’s hearing.
There are approximately 1.2 lakh undergraduate medical seats across govt and private medical colleges in the country. This year, more than 23 lakh students appeared for NEET-UG, which was held on May 5. The results were declared on June 4. It was found that as many as 67 students had scored the perfect score of 720, which was suspicious as only a few students were able to get it in previous years – leading to a huge controversy and investigation.