Parents of NEET‑UG 2026 candidates from Meghalaya have written to the state’s Health & Family Welfare Department to highlight serious irregularities in the Combined Counselling process for MBBS admissions 2026‑27, conducted by the Directorate of Health Services. The letter, addressed to the department, outlines a series of inconsistencies that have left families confused and their children’s future prospects uncertain.
The applicants have already endured a grueling journey: a re‑NEET examination, multiple rounds of counselling and re‑counselling, and in many cases a drop year that cost families time and money. They expected a transparent, merit‑based allotment at the end of this process, yet instead faced shifting criteria and outcomes that appeared to contradict the stated rules.
A key grievance concerns candidates from the ST (Khasi & Jaintia) category. These students, who qualify for both reserved seats and the general UR merit list, were often called only under the UR category many cycles later than their true K&J rank would allow. One example cited involved a top‑ten ST candidate being called after several cycles, forcing him to pick from a smaller pool and ultimately losing out to a lower‑ranked peer in the same category.
Other families complained that during re‑counselling, candidates were left with few options and were allotted seats that later appeared in notifications to have been given to lower‑merit applicants. The SOP for the process was reportedly made public only a day after choice‑filling, meaning students had to lock in life‑defining decisions before they could read the rules that governed them.
The letter urges the department to clarify the treatment of ST candidates, review inconsistent allotments, publish SOPs well before choice‑filling, establish a transparent seat‑allocation mechanism, and protect students who gave up earlier offers in good faith. It stresses that an opaque process undermines public confidence, discourages merit‑based preparation, and ultimately harms the quality of future medical professionals in Meghalaya.
