The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) Post Graduate will still take place on the planned date, and the National Medical Commission (NMC) has rejected appeals from petitioners from Telangana to postpone it.

The National Medical Commission (NMC) rejected the requests to delay the National Eligibility Entrance Test for Postgraduate (NEET PG) 2023 from petitioners in Telangana and declared that the exam will still take place on March 5. This was due to the timely announcement of the exam date, the small number of applications after the extension of the internship completion deadline, the need to prepare for the exam, and the early start of the academic session 2023-24.

NMC stated in an official public announcement that they had carefully evaluated the applicant’s representation in accordance with the order of the High Court of Telangana, but they were unable to accept it.

NMC took the decision on the basis of the following:

• NEET PG 2023 exam date was already fixed six months in advance and the exam notice was uploaded on the website on September 16, 2022.
• Over 2 lakh students registered for the postgraduate entrance exam and had not objected to the date initially, when the cut-off date for the completion of the internship was March 31, 2023.
• After representations from various state governments and universities, the internship completion deadline was extended to August 11, 2023 and “surprisingly” only 5,000 additional applications were received which constitutes about 2 percent of the total candidates who are going to take exam. Postponing the exam will create problem for 98% of the students who have been studying/preparing for NEET PG exam and have represented to not to postpone the date of examination.
• All the preparations are over and the test is to be conducted at more than 800 centres for more than 2 lakh students.
• The academic session is planned to be started in July 2023 or as early as possible after counselling.

On February 17 and 20, the petitioners requested an exam delay due to the extension of the internship completion date on February 7, 2023. This left 18,000 doctors, including them, with limited time to prepare for the exam.

The Telangana High Court ruled to have the petitioners present a new representation to NMC within seven days, and asked the NMC to reevaluate their resolution to carry out the examination on the fifth of March. It further asked the NMC to make a decision in accordance with the law as soon as possible, noting that the entrance exam is set to take place in the initial week of March, 2023.