Mumbai: The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) on Wednesday announced that the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for Postgraduate (PG) 2025 will be held on June 15 in two separate shifts on a computer-based platform.
This marks the second consecutive year that the postgraduate medical entrance exam will follow a multi-shift format—drawing sharp criticism from aspirants, parents, and education activists over issues of transparency and fairness.
“Till 2023, NEET PG — a secure, computer-based exam — was conducted in a single shift without any reports of paper leaks,” said Brijesh Sutaria, a Mumbai-based medical education activist, speaking to The Free Press Journal.
“But in 2024, fearing a repeat of the NEET UG leak — a pen-and-paper exam — the government suddenly slashed PG exam centres and split the exam into two shifts just 10 hours before its scheduled start. No raw scores were declared, only All India Ranks (AIRs), which led to legal petitions. Sadly, despite multiple mentions, the Supreme Court has not yet been able to hear the case.”
According to NBEMS’s latest notice, results for NEET PG 2025 will be declared by July 15, with the application process starting on April 17.
Critics argue that the continuation of the two-shift system — intended to be a temporary adjustment — lacks justification, especially given NEET PG’s secure, online format.
“Why must 2.4 lakh PG aspirants, who will become India’s next specialists, suffer due to problems in another exam with ten times the number of candidates?” asked Sutaria. “NEET PG papers are uploaded just minutes before the test. There’s no logic here—only forced normalisation.”
Parents, too, have expressed deep concerns over NBEMS’s handling of the process. Sudha Shenoy, a parent representative, questioned the board’s ability to manage the normalisation process.
“It’s simply not justified. Unlike the Institute of National Importance Combined Entrance Test (INI-CET), which has experience and competence in multi-shift exams, NBEMS lacks transparency. Just look at the huge variation in the number of questions from each subject between the two shifts in 2024—it’s shocking when compared to the uniformity maintained over the previous five years,” she said.
Data from 2019 to 2023 shows remarkable consistency in the subject-wise distribution of questions, with 200 questions asked annually. However, in 2024, discrepancies between Shift 1 and Shift 2 were significant—for example, Anatomy had 7 questions in Shift 1 and 16 in Shift 2, and Pathology jumped from 16 to 21. “Such fluctuations raise questions about the fairness of evaluating candidates through normalisation,” said Shenoy.
