NEET PG Shock: Doctors With Zero, Negative Marks & 2 Lakh Rank Admitted

From 50th Percentile to Zero Percentile – How Standards Fell

When the Supreme Court introduced NEET PG as a common entrance exam for medical education, the goal was clear: set minimum standards so only capable candidates became doctors. The qualifying benchmark was fixed at the 50th percentile.

This meant that if 2 lakh students appeared, the top 1 lakh qualified and the bottom 1 lakh did not. Even category-based relaxation (40th percentile for SC/ST/OBC, 45th for PwD) still maintained a clear line of NEET PG merit list.

But over the years, this line blurred. With private and deemed colleges charging very high fees, thousands of non-clinical seats remained vacant. To fill them, the National Medical Commission (NMC) and the counselling authorities began lowering the qualifying NEET PG cutoff drastically.

Here’s how the standards collapsed?

This shift meant that merit no longer decided who became a doctor – instead, the priority became filling every seat, especially in high-fee private colleges.

The result? In 2023 and 2024, candidates with zero and even negative marks were officially declared qualified for postgraduate medical courses.

Students With Negative and Zero Marks Still Qualified

One of the biggest controversies in NEET PG 2023 was the fact that students who scored negative or zero marks were still declared qualified and got seats through the NEET PG counselling.

Normally, negative scoring means that a candidate answered more questions incorrectly than correctly. In any competitive exam, such students would be automatically disqualified. But in NEET PG 2023, due to the percentile being reduced to 0, even these candidates were marked as “qualified.”

Negative Marks but Qualified

The data reveals that 13 students with negative marks — as low as -40 out of 800 — were included in the qualified list.

Zero Marks but Still Qualified

Even more shocking, 14 students who scored exactly 0 out of 800 also qualified for NEET PG.

This means that 27 students with zero or negative scores were made eligible to pursue postgraduate medical education in India.

The larger question is: if candidates who answered almost everything wrong are qualifying, what does this mean for the quality of future doctors?

Watch Video:

Above 2 Lakh Rank Students Still Got Seats in 2023 & 2024

It’s not just that students with zero or negative marks qualified. The real shock comes from the fact that some of them actually secured seats in medical colleges.

In both 2023 and 2024 counselling rounds, candidates with extremely low marks and percentiles — sometimes below even 1 percentile — were allotted postgraduate medical seats in various postgraduate medical colleges in India.

Examples From 2023 Admissions The data shows that students with marks as low as 5–43 out of 800 managed to get into MD programs:

In total, 16 students with ranks above 2 lakh and marks between 5–43 got PG seats in 2023.

Examples From 2024 Admissions

The trend continued in 2024. Even when the cutoff was set at the 5th percentile, students with ranks beyond 2 lakh still entered MD programs:

In fact, 25 students with ranks above 2 lakh managed to grab seats in 2024 as well. If we go by the 2023 data (for which we had the score and could calculate percentile), these students would have scored a ZERO or negative marks.

This means that students who scored just 5–40 marks out of 800, or were in the bottom 1% of all candidates, entered postgraduate medical courses. While top scorers fight for clinical branches like Radiology, Medicine, and Pediatrics, the lowest scorers are quietly getting into non-clinical subjects — raising serious doubts about the value of NEET PG as a merit-based exam.

Merit vs Money: Who Is Becoming a Doctor?

The NEET PG data raises a painful truth — in many cases, it’s not merit, but money that decides who becomes a doctor.

Private and deemed universities charge high fees for postgraduate courses, sometimes running into tens of lakhs per year. Clinical branches like Radiology, Dermatology, and Medicine are in high demand and go to top scorers. But in non-clinical branches such as Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry, and Community Medicine, many seats remain vacant because students don’t prefer them.

To avoid leaving these expensive seats empty, the counselling authorities lowered the qualifying cutoffs again and again — even to 0 percentile in 2023. As a result:

• Students with -40 or 0 marks could claim PG seats.

• Students with ranks above 2 lakh were admitted in 2023 and 2024.

This means candidates who lacked basic performance in the exam could still secure seats — as long as they could afford the fees.

Are we producing doctors who can truly treat patients, or just those who can pay?: The Bigger Question for India’s Healthcare

The NEET PG controversy is not just about numbers, cutoffs, or ranks. It is about the future of healthcare in India. When students with negative and zero marks can qualify, and when those with 2 lakh ranks can still secure seats, it raises a fundamental concern: What kind of doctors will our system produce?

If the trend continues, we risk creating a generation of doctors who may hold the title, but not the training or competence required to save lives. Instead of raising standards, the system seems focused on filling every seat in private and deemed colleges, even if it means compromising quality.

This is not just a student issue. It concerns every citizen, because tomorrow, these very candidates will be the ones writing prescriptions, handling emergencies, and making life-or-death decisions for patients.

India must now decide:

• Should minimum medical standards be strictly protected, even if some seats remain vacant?

• Or should the system continue lowering the bar just to ensure colleges earn their fees?

The answer will shape the trust people place in India’s healthcare system for years to come.

The NEET PG system was created to uphold merit and minimum standards in medical education. But the shocking reality of negative marks, zero marks, and 2 lakh rank students getting seats shows how far we have drifted from that vision. If this continues, India risks building a healthcare system where money decides who becomes a doctor, not competence.

The authorities must act now. Either protect the sanctity of NEET PG by enforcing real cutoffs, or accept that the trust of millions of patients in our doctors will slowly erode.

Because at the end of the day, this is not just about seats or ranks — it’s about who we allow to hold a stethoscope and treat human lives.