Govt of India must postpone NEET MDS 2022 immediately

Points on how this transpired:

Last year NEET MDS took place in Dec 2020 and NEET PG in Sept 2021. MDS aspirants joined college in November 2021 and wasted entire year.

On 21^st October, 2021, a notice by National Board of Examinations (NBE) stated that MDS exam for NEET MDS will be conducted on 4th of June 2022. Then 10 days later another notice in which it was written that exam will be on 6th March, 2022 instead of the previous date and a few days after this NEET PG date was also declared as 12 March 2022.

Due to covid pandemic, 2016 batch which is the current intern batch had final year exams delayed in most of the states and so their internship started very late. The criteria in general for sitting in NEET MDS exam is that we have to complete out internship by 31st March of the ongoing academic year. But due to late commencement of internship the last date was extended till May/June 30^th, 2022. The criteria this year is also 31st March, 2022 and so most of the students will not be able to sit in the exam.

A notice was sent by DCI in Jan, 2022 stating that as they want to avoid delaying of the academic session for Post Graduates they will not consider 2016 batch interns eligible for giving exam if their internship is not completed by 31st March.

Solution to avoid this confusion as a one-time measure not amounting to precedence, where the Minister for Health can use discretionary power to provide a waiver to MDS aspirants:

Postpone NEET MDS to May/June 2022 and make the 2016 batch of BDS interns eligible. Give them enough time to mentally prepare for the same factoring in unprecedented times in the world.