New Delhi,  The Medical Counselling Committee on Thursday announced a 15 per cent reduction in the cut-off percentile for an additional mop-up round counselling to fill up vacant seats of super-speciality courses.

The decision was taken during a meeting chaired by Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and attended by the Chairman of the National Medical Commission.

The MCC, in a letter to the National Board of Examinations, said that the decision to reduce the cut-off percentile by 15 per cent was taken at a meeting held in the Ministry, under the chairmanship of the Minister and attended by Additional Secretary, Medical Education, Additional Director General, Medical Education, NMC Chairman, and others.

The decision comes after the Union Health Ministry directed NMC on Tuesday to conduct a special mop-up round to fill up the remaining super-specialty seats and to lower the cut off percentile for additional round of mop-up counselling.

The MCC has also asked the NBE to provide the revised result after reduction of qualification percentile for admission in super-speciality courses in the academic year 2021.

"We welcome this move. Around 1,000 seats of super-specialist courses were remaining vacant. We expecting this decision from the ministry. Our country needs a lot of super- specialist doctors and even one seat should not be vacant," Federation of All India Medical Associations President, Dr Rohan Krishnan, said.

There are 930 super speciality seats - 534 D.M/ M.Ch and 396 DNB seats -still lying vacant after two rounds of counselling and one mop-up round of counselling.