Data from the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) reveals over 18,000 postgraduate medical seats under NEET PG 2025-26 remain vacant across India. Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu each have more than 2,000 empty seats under private, management, and NRI quotas. The Health Ministry’s data shows seats in government and private medical colleges have gone unfilled even after Round 2 counselling. The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) cut the qualifying percentile to zero for reserved categories in Round 3 to boost seat filling. The total seats grew from 40,858 in 2020 to about 80,291 in 2025, including 17,707 Diploma and DNB seats. Subjects with many vacant seats include microbiology, pathology, biochemistry, forensic medicine, and pharmacology. Meanwhile, popular fields remain general medicine, radiodiagnosis, general surgery, dermatology, obstetrics and gynaecology, and paediatrics. The NEET PG 2025 results were declared on August 19, 2025. NBEMS conducted the exam on August 3, 2024, with over 2.42 lakh candidates across 301 cities and 1,052 centres. Rohan Krishnan, chief patron of the Federation of All India Medical Association Doctors’ Association, said, “While lowering the NEET PG qualifying percentile undermines the credibility of the examination, the fee structure of private colleges, which starts at ₹20 lakh and goes up to ₹4 crore, is the primary deterrent.” A senior doctor added, “The prohibitive cost of education, reluctance to pick up non-clinical subjects, lack of good teaching staff, infrastructure, patient load and stipend are also issues that need to be immediately addressed if we want to ensure that NEET PG seats are taken up.”