NEW DELHI: The Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Wednesday wrote to Minister for Health and Family Welfare Mansukh Mandaviya urging to reduce the NEET PG 2023 cut off.

In its letter addressed to the Minister, the IMA while recalling the contribution of doctors in Covid pandemic wrote: “We should not forget that during previous Covid waves, when the country was in the state of emergency and people were dying, the doctors left their homes and served the nation fervently. The time has come for the administration to recognize them for their selfless service by reducing the cut off marks for NEET-PG 2023.

“This will ensure that a significant number of aspiring doctors can enroll for postgraduate programs in various medical colleges across the country and not a single postgraduate seat goes vacant,” the association said.

“As a result of high cut off scores, aspiring medical students will not only be prevented from entering Post Graduation but will also be compelled to travel overseas to pursue their dream field, further depleting the medical manpower pool in India. We urge the concerned authorities to look into this matter as early as possible and take immediate steps to resolve it and help the country acquire more specialist doctors.

“By making the right decision, the administration can make the lives of many aspiring and hardworking doctors worthwhile, which will ultimately benefit the nation in the long run.

“We request you to reduce the NEET PG 2023 cut off percentile up to 30 per cent so that most of the seats are filled in both clinical and non-clinical branches,” the association wrote to Mandaviya.