INI-CET for AIIMS, JIPMER, and PGIMER 2026: PG Medical Seats, Specialist Salary After MD, and the Postgraduate Career Map

Around 1,360 seats. One exam paper. INI-CET is the narrowest entry door in Indian postgraduate medicine, and the doctors who walk through it sign up for another decade of training before the work fully begins.

The 1,235-seat July 2025 cycle and the 1,233-seat January 2025 cycle of INI-CET filled MD, MS, DM, MCh, and MDS posts across 23 Institutes of National Importance. Roughly 1,000 of those seats sit inside 19 AIIMS campuses. AIIMS New Delhi offers 134, PGIMER Chandigarh 130, AIIMS Jodhpur 126, and JIPMER Puducherry 119. The remaining seats are split between NIMHANS Bengaluru and SCTIMST Trivandrum.

One exam, twice a year, decides where the next generation of Indian specialists will train.

NEET PG fills the rest of India's postgraduate seats, but INI-CET runs on a separate cut-off and a separate counselling cycle, conducted directly by AIIMS Delhi. A candidate can attempt both. Most serious aspirants do.

The choice of specialty matters more than the choice of campus.

Radiology, dermatology, and surgical superspecialities draw the steepest competition because post-MD earnings climb fastest there. Family medicine and community health pay less in private practice, but offer a saner calendar and earlier independence.

After three years of MD or MS, the path opens into a Senior Residency. An AIIMS Senior Resident sits in Pay Level 11 of the 7th Pay Commission matrix.

Senior Resident in-hand pay at AIIMS runs ₹1,00,000 to ₹1,30,000 a month in 2025, on a basic of ₹67,700.

By thirty, a doctor who cleared INI-CET at twenty-four is finally close to consultant pay and clinical independence. The early years are training. The career begins after.

If postgraduate medicine is your plan, pick two specialties you would happily train in. Rank pressure makes that decision for many candidates. Make it yourself first.