Govt sets committee to decide on EWS criteria for NEET PG Counselling 2021

Amid the nationwide protest of resident doctors demanding to expedite NEET PG Counselling 2021, the government has formed a committee to review EWS criteria for NEET Counselling.

R Subrahmanyam, ministry of social justice and empowerment, announced through Twitter that the government has formed a committee to review the INR 8 lakh annual income criteria earlier set to determine Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) category for the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) Counselling.

He tweeted, "Government today appointed the committee for revisiting the criteria for Economically Weaker Section reservations @MSJEGOI @PIB_India"

As per the official statement shared by R Subrahmanyam, the committee would examine approaches followed in India so far for determining the EWS category, it will re-visit the criteria given in O.M. dated January 17, 2019, in determining EWS category keeping in view the observations of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in their order dated 21 October 2021 and will recommend criteria that may be adopted for identifying EWS category in future.

It came after the Centre has decided to revisit the EWS determining criteria for NEET Counselling and has asked four weeks from Supreme Court for the same.  The Centre's decision has triggered a nationwide protest of resident doctors demanding to speed up the NEET PG Counselling 2021 as the Centre has also assured the top court that they will start the counselling only after they take the final decision on this criteria. Currently, resident doctors in all government medical colleges across the country are overburdened as they are waiting for support from PG first year medicos which can only be provided after the new medicos joins the PG courses.

Now, FAIMA (Federation of All India Medical Association) has also joined the resident doctors in the protest by shutting down the elective services from today.

Read more:

• NEET PG Counselling 2021: FAIMA to shutdown elective services from today
• Centre to revisit INR 8 lakh criteria for determining EWS for NEET Counselling 2021