Govt to add over 10,000 MBBS and PG seats, Cabinet approves phase 3 of medical college upgrades

This is in line with the Centre’s plan of adding 75,000 new medical seats over the next five years.

This is in line with the government’s plan of adding 75,000 new medical seats over the next five years, as announced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in this year’s budget. (Source: Express Archives)

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the third phase of the centrally sponsored scheme to add 5,023 MBBS seats and 5,000 PG seats in existing government medical colleges and institutes at a cost of Rs 15,034 crore over the next three years.

This is in line with the government’s plan of adding 75,000 new medical seats over the next five years, as announced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in this year’s budget.

Under the scheme, the Centre provided support in the first phase for adding 4,977 MBBS seats in 83 colleges at a cost of Rs 5,972 crore and 4,058 PG seats in 72 colleges for Rs 1,498 crore. In the second phase, the Centre provided support of Rs 4,478 crore to add 4,000 seats in 65 colleges.

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The government has undertaken several initiatives to increase the number of medical seats in the country, including a scheme to establish new medical colleges alongside existing district hospitals, one to increase seats in existing colleges, and a scheme for setting up new AIIMS.

Currently, there are approximately 1.2 lakh MBBS seats and 74,306 PG medical seats available across the country. This has nearly doubled from the 51,328 MBBS seats and 31,185 PG seats available in 2014. With medicine being a highly sought-after profession — over 20 lakh students appear for the qualifying NEET examination — the government has been working on increasing the number of seats.

Read | NEET UG: Education Ministry analysing data to explore online mode of exam

This was also done to encourage Indian students to study in colleges within the country, especially after there were problems in completing courses by foreign medical graduates, especially from China, due to the pandemic, the Philippines, whose course structure is not accepted in India, and Ukraine, due to the war.

The increase, however, led to a few problems.

First was a shortage of faculty across several medical colleges in the country. The National Medical Commission, the apex medical education regulator, took several steps, including monitoring online Aadhaar-based biometric attendance and live video feeds from colleges, to curb the problem of ghost faculty.

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The government also relaxed norms, such as allowing DNB doctors (a postgraduate training course conducted at non-teaching hospitals) to become faculty members, and increasing the age limit for the appointment of teachers.

Secondly, many of the new seats were in private medical colleges, for which the fees can be extremely high. In 2022, NMC attempted to regulate the fees for seats at private medical colleges, but has so far been unable to implement this regulation.

Anonna Dutt

Anonna Dutt is a Principal Correspondent who writes primarily on health at the Indian Express. She reports on myriad topics ranging from the growing burden of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension to the problems with pervasive infectious conditions. She reported on the government’s management of the Covid-19 pandemic and closely followed the vaccination programme. Her stories have resulted in the city government investing in high-end tests for the poor and acknowledging errors in their official reports. Dutt also takes a keen interest in the country’s space programme and has written on key missions like Chandrayaan 2 and 3, Aditya L1, and Gaganyaan. She was among the first batch of eleven media fellows with RBM Partnership to End Malaria. She was also selected to participate in the short-term programme on early childhood reporting at Columbia University’s Dart Centre. Dutt has a Bachelor’s Degree from the Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, Pune and a PG Diploma from the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. She started her reporting career with the Hindustan Times. When not at work, she tries to appease the Duolingo owl with her French skills and sometimes takes to the dance floor. ... Read More

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