NEET-PG 2024 Counselling: 820 Additional Seats Added Across All-India Quota, DNB, and Deemed Universities

MUMBAI: The total number of postgraduate medical seats increased by 820 so far this year in the central counselling process, which includes the all-India quota seats , deemed and central universities, DNB (Diplomate of National Board), and diploma ones.

The seat matrix of the NEET-PG counselling process was released by the central Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) after a day’s delay on Saturday. While students claimed that some of the govt colleges were missing from the all-India quota seat matrix, these are likely to be added soon.

The maximum increase in PG medical seats is seen in deemed universities, followed by DNB seats in the country. In DNB alone, where the total seats increased by 494, 103 were added in general medicine, a popular branch among students, followed by orthopaedics with 65 seats and general surgery with 48. While the maximum seats in DNB are available in general medicine (922), it is followed by anaesthesia with 620 seats and general surgery with 500. On the contrary, for the two-year diploma course, more seats are added to the paediatrics branch, followed by anaesthesia and ophthalmology.

PG medical admissions commenced over two months after the NEET-PG results were out. While the results were out on August 23 and the registrations started soon after, the choice filling process started only now. Sudha Shenoy, a parent representative, said that there is always an increase in the intake capacity, but students are unsure about the entire picture as 335 seats are missing from the all-India quota compared to last year.

“Even if there’s an increase this year, it should have been clear by now as there was already a long delay. For Mumbai students, a civic college in Nerul, which recently got the permission to offer PG courses, was missing from the seat matrix released by the MCC,” she said.