Shimla/Chandigarh/NewDelhi | January 14, 2026
The Union Health Ministry is set to trigger a nationwide storm after officially lowering NEET-PG qualifying cut-offs to unprecedented levels, allowing even negative scorers to become eligible for postgraduate medical courses.
A "confidential notice" in possession of himbumail.com issued by the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) on January 13, acting on directions of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, has exposed what medical experts and doctors are calling the biggest dilution of medical standards in India’s history.
According to the notice, the cut-off for SC/ST/OBC candidates has been slashed to zero percentile, translating into a shocking revised qualifying score of –40 out of 800.
This means candidates who performed below zero are now officially eligible for PG admissions.
For General and EWS categories, the percentile has been dropped from 50th to 7th, crashing the qualifying score from 276 to just 103, while for PwBD candidates it has fallen from 255 to 90.
“Standard of medical education… person with –40 score eligible, wah NMC,” reacted veteran HMOA members , summing up the disbelief and anger of doctors across the country. "If the Ministry can do it at its whims of fancy, then what is the role of NBEMS, which is nothing but making mockery of the PG NEET examinations".
Medical professionals say years of hard work, merit and competition have been reduced to a mockery by a single notification.
The outrage comes at a crucial time when India has a massive pool of PG medical seats for the 2025–26 academic year.
Official data suggests there are around 52,173 seats based on NMC releases, while the Union Health Minister himself has earlier indicated the figure could cross 80,000 seats to make up for the shortage of specialists in the country.
Of these, approximately 29,447 seats are in government colleges, while 15,500 to 22,700 seats lie in private institutions and around 7,000 seats in deemed universities.
This year alone, over 7,000 new PG seats have been approved, significantly expanding capacity.
Medical experts warn that the combination of massive seat expansion and diluted cut-offs will open floodgates for profiteering.
They allege private medical colleges will now easily fill seats by charging crores of rupees, turning postgraduate medical education into a high-stakes money market.
“This is a scam of mind-blowing proportions,” said senior doctors, warning that merit has been replaced by money power.
Experts fear this trend will accelerate the collapse of medical standards and entrench commercialisation in a profession once considered noble.
They caution that the real victims will be patients. “Tomorrow your surgeon could be someone who couldn’t even score zero. Your child’s doctor may be a minus scorer,” warned a senior physician, calling it a direct threat to public safety.
Adding to the anger is the deafening silence of major medical bodies. Organisations like the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Himachal Medical Officers Association (HMOA), UDF other professional groups have failed to mount a strong protest so far. Their inaction has raised serious questions within the fraternity.
Even IMA has written to the Ministry to fill 0ver 18000 vacant PG seats in the medical colleges in the country.
While the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) will release the final official seat matrix, doctors say the damage has already been done.
They allege the system now appears designed to benefit private colleges, not public health.
At himbumail.com.com, which has consistently batted for quality medical education and patient safety, this move is seen as a betrayal of public trust.
Allowing negative scorers into PG courses, experts say, is not reform but reckless governance.
The biggest question echoing across hospital corridors and medical campuses is sharp and uncomfortable.
Is Union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda aware that candidates with minus marks are now being allowed to become specialists?
If he knows, doctors ask, how can such a decision be justified. If he doesn’t, who is steering the country’s healthcare policy.
“This is a Himalayan question doing the rounds in the medical fraternity,” said a senior doctor, demanding immediate intervention.
Doctors warn that if this notification is not rolled back, it could permanently damage India’s healthcare system.
For now, everybody is watching as standards crumble and money takes centre stage.
The ministry must answer, and it must answer now, before patient lives become what medical professionals call "collateral damage of flawed policies".
All eyes are on Jagat Prakash Nadda now.
#NEETPG #MedicalEducationCrisis #HealthMinistry #PrivateMedicalColleges #PatientSafety
