Explained: Story behind trending hashtag 'Postpone NEET PG Modiji'
Several doctors' bodies have sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention to hear their plea and postpone the NEET PG 2022 examination, which is scheduled to be held on May 21.
FollowEven as junior doctors across the country urged the Union government to postpone the NEET PG 2022 examination, which is scheduled to be held on May 21, several doctors' bodies have sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention to hear their pleas.
Aiming to draw his attention, hundreds of doctors took to social media platforms like Twitter to run the hashtag #POSTPONENEETPG_MODIJI. Within hours of the virtual campaign, the hashtag started trending top on Twitter with over 125,000 tweets.
The doctors' associations decided to start an online campaign after they wrote several letters to President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.
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Talking to Asianet Newsable, Dr Rohan Krishnan, President of FAIMA -- the umbrella body of doctors associations across India -- said, "It is very important to hear the plea of aspirants. Their concern is very genuine. NEET PG is one of the toughest exams. A doctor has to go through it. Preparation does take around a year but it is very volatile. One has to read up again and again. So, the last 2-3 weeks of the examinations become very crucial. We cannot expect them to attend the counselling and at the same time sit for the examination."
FAIMA president also said that the health minister had earlier postponed the examination from March to May citing the reason that counselling for the previous batch was not over.
"This point is still valid. So it is imperative that the government finishes off the counselling at a fast pace now and also gives the students some time to prepare for the exams," Dr Krishnan added.
"The gap between counselling and examination is hardly 10 days. Every year all medicos have a chance of attending NEET during their internship but this year due to Covid lakhs of interns are not eligible for the examination," Dr Vishwas from Karnataka told Asianet Newsable.
"We have a huge syllabus, but we did not get even a month's time for preparations," he said.
Another medico, Dr Teerth Vashi said, "We just want the examinations to get postponed for 8-10 weeks so that we can read 19 subjects. The state counselling is still left and it will end on May 7."
Chinmayee Gowda, Women wing in charge of the FAIMA doctors association in Bengaluru, said, "The NEET PG 2021 All0India counselling is going to get over by May 7. This will be followed by various state counsellings too, which will take at least two weeks and that will approach the NEET PG 2022 examination date. Some states like Kerala, Bihar, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh and Gujurat have cancelled their mop-up rounds and will start in the second week of May."
"These 30000-40000 doctors are in the most uncertain phase of their career where they are not sure if grabbing a seat in this counselling and also not prepared for the next NEET PG 2022 examination which is on May 21, 2022. There are also 5000 intern doctors from different states who are ineligible to appear in the examination because they served during a pandemic for which their internship started late. Therefore, the solution to every grievance of these doctors is to defer the examination by 8-10 weeks for the sake of their careers," she added.
Several Members of Parliament have also urged the health minister to consider the medicos' demand. On May 4, a group of medicos had filed a plea in the Supreme Court for its deferment.
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