Published Feb 19, 2026 | 7:00 AM ⚊ Updated Feb 19, 2026 | 7:36 AM
Exam. Representational Image. (iStock)
Synopsis: A social media post alleging that low-scoring “category doctors” endangered patients went viral after the government reduced NEET-PG qualifying percentiles on 13 January 2026 to fill nearly 20,000 vacant postgraduate medical seats. Round 3 data show that 2,123 candidates secured seats below the earlier cut-offs across categories, with the highest number from the General category, and similar patterns were reflected in Telangana’s state quota admissions.
“A 13-year-old girl. Type 1 Diabetes. Diabetic Ketoacidosis. Five days admitted in a government hospital. Five days. Her sugar is still 549. These MFs couldn’t control her sugar in 4-5 days… When systems allow huge gaps at entry and never re-check competence ruthlessly before giving power and promotions, who pays? Only poor people are dying… Category Doctors with minus 40, 4, 44, 100, 150 marks who enter the system – what can you expect from them?,” wrote a doctor named Dhanajay Kumar Tomar on X on 12 February.
The post spread across medical forums and WhatsApp groups in early 2026. It named reservation. It named category doctors. It called the outcome legal murder. It reached hundreds of thousands of people. The truth about the X post remains with the doctor, but data on reservation and the lowering of marks tells a different story.
On 13 January 2026, the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences published a notice that rewrote the qualifying thresholds for Round 3 of the NEET-PG counselling. For SC, ST and OBC candidates, the minimum qualifying percentile dropped from the 40th to the 0th. The score corresponding to that percentile fell from 235 to minus 40 out of 800.
For General and EWS candidates, the cut-off dropped from the 50th percentile to the 7th. In marks, that translated from 276 to 103.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare communicated the decision to NBEMS on 9 January. In a Supreme Court affidavit filed on 16 February, the board stated it had no role in the decision. That decision, the board said, belonged entirely to the ministry and the National Medical Commission.
The trigger lay in the numbers from Round 2. When that round closed on 17 December 2025, 9,621 seats in the All India quota had gone unfilled. When state quotas and DNB programmes were included, the figure rose to approximately 20,000 empty seats. Union Minister of State for Health Anupriya Patel told the Rajya Sabha on 10 February that earlier academic years had seen similar reductions, including 2023, when qualifying percentiles also dropped to zero.
Under the old criteria, 1,28,116 candidates qualified. The new criteria unlocked 95,913 more: 41,918 from the General category, 32,664 from OBC, 13,710 from SC and 7,621 from ST.
The NBEMS Round 3 beneficiary list covers 2,123 doctors who secured postgraduate seats in the January 2026 counselling round in the All India category after scoring below 276 marks. General category candidates secured 965 seats. That represents 45.5 percent of all seats filled in the round, the highest of all categories. OBC candidates secured 532 seats. SC candidates secured 270. ST candidates secured 171. EWS candidates secured 92.
All 2,123 doctors entered below the qualifying mark their category required before 13 January 2026.
Of the 41,918 General category candidates who became newly eligible after the percentile drop, 965 secured seats in Round 3, a conversion rate of 2.3 percent. Of the 32,664 OBC candidates who became newly eligible, 532 secured seats, a conversion rate of 1.6 percent. SC converted at 1.7 percent, with 236 seats from 13,710 newly eligible candidates. ST converted at 2.2 percent, with 171 seats from 7,621 newly eligible candidates.
Two further sub-groups sit within the data. EWS candidates, who share the General category cut-off of 103 after the reduction, secured 92 seats. The PwD sub-categories across OBC, SC, ST and EWS contributed 127 seats in total: 75 OBC PwD, 34 SC PwD, 12 EWS PwD and six ST PwD. The parliamentary statement did not provide separate newly eligible figures for EWS or PwD sub-categories, so conversion rates for those groups cannot be calculated on the same basis.
The newly eligible figures come from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s parliamentary statement, which said the revised criteria unlocked 95,913 additional candidates nationally across all counselling rounds.
In absolute seats filled, the General category led every count.
The median score for General category candidates who secured seats in Round 3 was 208 out of 800. For EWS it was 201, ST 185, OBC 181 and SC 176. These medians sit far below the old General threshold of 276 and the old reserved category threshold of 235.
The extreme low scores that drove the public conversation belonged predominantly to reserved categories: OBC at minus 12, SC at minus 5, ST at minus 8. Three General category candidates with PwD reservation scored below 100, with the lowest at 93, and secured seats.
Sixteen OBC candidates, two SC and three ST candidates scored below 50 marks and secured postgraduate seats. All entered through Round 3, the same round in which 965 General category doctors entered below the old threshold of 276.
Dr D Srinath Dubyala, National President of the Federation of All India Medical Association, frames the concern in terms that cut across category lines. The debate, he insists, is not about reservation.
“This is not about judging candidates based on their background. Many of these candidates belong to OBC, SC, and ST communities, and we are not questioning reservation. We are questioning the absence of a minimum academic standard. Asking for another exam attempt is not discrimination; it is about patient safety and medical standards.”
He points to where the consequences land. “Biochemistry, Physiology and Anatomy are not minor or dispensable branches. They form the foundation of medical education. A person with an MD in Biochemistry will become a professor tomorrow, responsible for teaching first-year MBBS students. That individual will shape the academic foundation of future doctors.”
FAIMA has proposed conducting NEET-PG twice a year as an alternative to lowering cut-offs. Vacant seats from the first round would be filled in the second attempt.
Dr Sudhir Kumar, a neurologist based in Hyderabad, challenges the premise from a different direction. He argues that the fixation on entrance scores misreads where competence actually forms.
“For every MD, MS, DM or DNB course, the pass mark is 50 percent, with no relaxation for any category, including SC, ST or OBC. Reservation applies only at the entry stage, not at the exit stage. Four independent examiners assess the candidate, most of them from outside institutions. If the candidate is not competent, they fail and must reappear.”
Kumar draws a line the viral post ignored entirely. “These candidates have already completed MBBS. They are already licensed doctors under NMC regulations. An MBBS doctor can legally treat patients, perform surgeries, conduct deliveries and manage emergencies. If such a doctor does not enter PG, they can still open a clinic and practise independently.”
Telangana’s KNRUHS mop-up phase data confirmed the pattern at the state level. Among 333 candidates who secured state quota PG seats below 276 marks, OBC led with 132 candidates. SC followed with 80. General candidates numbered 71. ST candidates numbered 50.
The dataset contained cases that the national data did not show in the same resolution. An ST candidate who scored one out of 800 secured MS Orthopaedics. An SC candidate who scored 12 marks entered MD Forensic Medicine at Osmania Medical College.
The Telangana data also introduced quota type. Of the 71 General category candidates in the dataset, 26 entered through the Management Quota, meaning they secured seats in private medical colleges on the basis of payment capacity alongside examination performance. Twenty-eight entered through the Competent Authority (Non-Service) route. Seventeen entered through the In-Service route.
Management Quota candidates across all categories totalled 54 out of 333. Twenty-seven came from OBC. One came from SC. None came from ST.
Nothing in the Round 3 data connects any individual doctor’s NEET-PG score to the quality of care they deliver. The post about the 13-year-old girl described a failure in DKA management. DKA management fails for reasons that include understaffing, absent supervision, broken supply chains and institutional cultures where protocols do not enforce themselves. These conditions predated the January 2026 percentile reduction and cut across every category of doctor.
Dr RV Asokan, former National President of the Indian Medical Association, traces the structural condition to a system that expanded private medical seats from roughly 36,000 to nearly 64,000 postgraduate places without proportionate demand, and then found itself compelled to fill them at any cost.
“If there is chaos, it is not because the concept of a single entrance examination is flawed. The problem arises when administrative interference, fear-driven decision-making, and structural weaknesses disrupt what was otherwise a reasonably stable system.”
The Supreme Court petitions continue. FAIMA presses for NEET-PG twice a year. The government insists on filling seats.
The INI institutions—All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research and National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences—held their cut-offs and left some seats vacant rather than lower the threshold. Every other institution did not.
The candidate who scored minus 12 and entered MD Physiology now trains in a postgraduate programme.
Whether that entry produces a competent teacher depends on exit examinations, supervision and institutional culture. None of those appear on the counselling spreadsheet. None of them belong to any single category.
