Oh well, this question has been bugging us endlessly for the past few weeks, ever since the MCI declared on its website (ridiculously named MCIIndia.org. Redundancy five!) the much vaunted plan to redesign the ridiculous exam that guards the gates leading into the pantheons of post graduate medical education in India. And now, it seems, they have ended up putting their feet in their mouths, since our state university has released “tentative” date of the state entrance exam on the official site (more feet meeting mouth?).

Here, enjoy the screen grab of our very web 1.0-ey university website (looks worse than a badly done Google sites site!):

Hint: Look at the red box on the right. And if you cannot make it out, here is a slightly more zoomed in view. Hope this is more legible?

So this means that this is the end of the road for the much hyped NEET PG CET that was being proposed for unifying the multitudes of entrance examinations for the post graduate courses. I know this comes with several implications, but I always thought that it would be a rather difficult thing to obtain a consensus on the seat sharing, especially with the complex mathematics involving the private institutes and the states with screwed up caste based reservations (a scathing post coming up on this issue in a few days).

However, in all this drama, one must keep in mind the fact that the MCI has still not officially withdrawn from their status of organizing the NEET PG CET. Yet, with the West Bengal University of Health Sciences going ahead and posting the tentative date for the examination, there seems to be few doubts, if any, that the last nail has been inserted into the coffin for the NEET PG CET.

But for one moment, step back and think what all this dithering has meant for us, the examinees, the students, the ones who fuel this juggernaut of medical education system. We have groped in the dark, led this way and that by rumor mongering businessmen raking in a fortune over our situation (if you are too dumb to understand what I am talking about, I am talking about Coaching Institutes, that use our desperation to their financial gain. Did you know OnExamination, the BMJ End Games people, have started a segment for the Indian PGMEE as well? How ridiculous is that! Money makes the world go round…).

Anyways, I am also attaching the notice that the WBUHS has posted on the site. Take a look:

So, PG NEET CET or whatever you were called, you seem to have been aborted, at least for this year…