MUMBAI, Aug. 15 -- Cutoff marks for MBBS admissions in Maharashtra have fallen significantly this year, with the State Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell attributing the slide to a tougher NEET paper and smoother seat approvals. The CET Cell released the first merit list for 2025 on Thursday, showing the open-category cutoff for government medical colleges at 509 marks - down from 642 last year. In private unaided colleges, the cutoff dropped to 479 from 602. The CET Cell is conducting admissions for 8,138 MBBS seats across 64 colleges in the state. Officials said the decline is evident in both government and private institutions. While last year's higher cutoffs were partly due to an easier NEET paper, this year's exam - particularly its physics section - was considered more challenging. Experts noted that NEET's difficulty had been reduced during the COVID-19 years but has now reverted to pre-pandemic levels, depressing overall scores. Parents' representative Sudha Shenoy welcomed the trend, saying it would allow more students to secure government seats. She credited timely approvals for medical colleges - completed before the first merit list for the first time - as a key factor. "This is a good sign as more students will now get into government colleges. It's the result of several factors - including the number of students, and the excellent coordination between the CET Cell, MUHS and the National Medical Commission. For the first time, almost all approvals for colleges were completed before the first merit list was announced. This gave students clarity."...