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The postponement of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for Postgraduate (NEET-PG) 2025, originally scheduled for June 15 and now pushed to August 3, has triggered widespread concern among medical aspirants and education stakeholders. While the delay is officially linked to the Supreme Court’s May 30 directive that the exam must be conducted in a single shift to ensure fairness, students and experts argue that the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) had ample time to prepare for this and failed to do so.The apex court’s order came after student groups and medical associations challenged NBEMS’s plan to hold the exam in multiple shifts, citing significant variations in question paper difficulty levels and an opaque normalisation process. The court, siding with the petitioners, mandated a single-shift exam to safeguard the integrity of the assessment process—forcing the NBEMS to revise its schedule.But for thousands of NEET-PG aspirants, the fallout from the delay has been anything but fair.Brijesh Sutaria, a Mumbai-based medical education activist, told The Free Press Journal, “The postponement of NEET-PG 2025 may appear as just a change in date, but its ripple effects are far reaching. Aspirants are facing immense mental health pressure and anxiety, having to stay in a prolonged state of uncertainty. Financially, the delay has been harsh – many had taken temporary leaves from jobs or internships to focus on preparation, and now their income has stopped while expenses like rent, coaching, and travel continue to rise. Not all aspirants can afford to extend expensive video lecture subscriptions, which are often time-bound.”Sutaria also questioned the broader implications, asking, “And who truly benefits? Coaching institutes whose paid platforms will now be extended at additional costs. Not the students. More time doesn't always mean better preparation in medical education. For many, it means more burnout, more stress, and less focus. The NBEMS must recognise that delays by authorities do not automatically translate to advantage for aspirants. This repeated mishandling only reflects a lack of empathy and planning in how our future doctors are being treated.”Muzaffar Khan, a medical education counsellor, acknowledged the commercial gains for coaching centres but clarified that they were not behind the legal push and were not to be blamed.“It is a fact that coaching classes will benefit from the delay. They have already announced and started new 50-day preparation plans. But it wasn’t the coaching classes that went to the Supreme Court seeking a delay. Blaming coaching classes is not correct according to me. “Last year too there were concerns regarding the two-shift exam format, especially from in-service quota students who were affected due to a non-transparent normalisation process, yet no relief came at the time.”“Ideally, NBEMS should have listened to students’ concerns and planned for a single-shift exam well in advance. But that didn’t happen. While unfortunate, the delay now gives the authorities time to properly arrange examination centres. Unlike last year, I am hopeful that this year’s counselling process will be smoother and timelier,” Khan added. Last year, the counselling process—which started two months after the declaration of results—went on till February this year from October 2024.Candidates, however, remain deeply frustrated. One aspirant shared,“It has obviously added to our anxiety. The delay is not just about dates. It’s about our futures being held in limbo. Parents are panicking and enrolling us into these 50-day crash courses, spending money we don’t even know will be worth it. That adds to the pressure we’re already carrying.”Another said, “We were mentally and strategically preparing for July. Now everything is scattered. I had paused my clinical internship to give full attention to NEET-PG. This break now feels wasted. I might have to extend it, but how long can one stay idle with no clear timeline?”Students also pointed out that the NBEMS had an entire year to address last year’s concerns around shift-wise discrepancies but took no visible corrective action until forced by the court. “There was time to plan a fair, single-shift exam. The fact that it took a court order shows how reactive and indifferent the authorities have been,” said another student.