The decision of the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) to reduce the qualifying percentile to zero for reserved-category candidates in NEET-PG 2025 is not merely an administrative adjustment. It is a profound moral and institutional failure that strikes at the very foundation of fairness, merit, and credibility in India’s medical education system.
By allowing candidates who have scored negative marks – reportedly as low as minus 40 out of 800 – to participate in the third round of postgraduate medical counselling, the authorities have crossed a line that should never have been negotiable. This decision is being justified under the familiar excuse of “preventing seat wastage.” But when the price of filling seats is the dilution of minimum academic standards, we must pause and ask: at what cost?
For General Category students, this move is nothing short of a betrayal. These students prepare under intense pressure, often for years, knowing that even a marginal shortfall can end their postgraduate aspirations. They must clear a defined percentile, compete relentlessly, and accept the consequences of a brutally merit-based system. In contrast, candidates from OBC, SC, and ST categories are now being granted access to the same counselling process without meeting even a basic qualifying benchmark. This is not equity; it is institutionalised inequality.
Affirmative action was never meant to be a licence to abandon standards. Its original purpose was to ensure representation and opportunity for historically disadvantaged communities-not to legitimise failure or erase the concept of minimum competence. Medicine is not a clerical service or a desk job. It is a profession where knowledge gaps can translate directly into human suffering or loss of life. Lowering the bar to zero in such a field is reckless, regardless of the category involved.
The uncomfortable truth is that this decision exposes deeper systemic rot. If postgraduate medical seats are going vacant, the solution lies in reforming seat distribution, rationalising specialties, improving working conditions, and addressing regional imbalances – not in compromising the integrity of the examination process. Using reservation policy as a band-aid for administrative incompetence is both lazy and dangerous.
What message does this send to students across the country? That effort is optional? That merit is negotiable? That standards apply selectively? For the General Category student who misses the cutoff by a whisker, watching someone with negative marks enter counselling is understandably demoralising. It tells them that the rules are not only unequal, but arbitrarily flexible depending on political convenience.
Supporters of the move argue that counselling does not guarantee admission and that merit ranking will still apply. This is a weak defence. Entry into counselling itself is a significant advantage – it opens doors that remain firmly shut for many General Category candidates who may have scored far higher but failed to clear the cutoff. The psychological and practical inequity is real and undeniable.
There is also a larger societal implication. When citizens begin to lose faith in competitive examinations, they lose faith in institutions. NEET-PG is supposed to be a national standard, a filter that ensures only those with a minimum level of competence progress to specialised medical training. By reducing the qualifying percentile to zero for some and not for others, NBEMS has effectively admitted that the standard is optional. That is a dangerous precedent.
Let us be clear: questioning this decision is not an attack on any community. It is a defence of fairness and common sense. Equality before opportunity does not mean inequality in expectations. If a minimum standard is necessary for one group, it must be necessary for all. Otherwise, the system ceases to be just – it becomes arbitrary.
India needs more doctors, yes. But it needs competent doctors even more. Lowering standards to fill seats may solve a short-term administrative problem, but it creates long-term risks for healthcare quality and public trust. Patients do not ask for a doctor’s category; they assume competence. The system owes them that assurance.
In the end, this is not about General versus reserved categories. It is about whether India still believes that merit matters, that standards matter, and that rules must apply equally. A zero percentile is not a policy correction – it is an admission of failure. And until this mindset changes, the credibility of our medical education system will continue to erode.
