New Delhi: Facing criticism over its decision to link the number of MBBS seats with population of states, the National Medical Commission (NMC) has said the move was aimed at reducing “regional disparities in availability of healthcare professionals”.
The medical education regulator, in a statement released Monday, said that “various courts had made observations on crowding of medical colleges” over the last three years. ThePrint has a copy of the statement.
In August, the NMC had issued the Guidelines on Minimum Standard Requirement (MSR) For Establishment of New Medical College/Increase of Seats in MBBS Course, 2023.
The provisions said that from the next academic year, approval for new medical colleges and rise in the number of MBBS seats will be based on the population of the state where the upgrade is being planned.
“After 2023-24 (which means from the 2024-25 academic year), Letter of Permission for starting of new medical colleges shall be issued only for annual intake capacity of 50/100/150 seats (new medical colleges will only have 50-150 seats) provided that medical colleges shall follow the ratio of 100 MBBS seats per 10 lakh population in that state/Union Territory,” according to the notification.
It had drawn sharp reactions in the southern states as these guidelines mean that Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh cannot open new medical colleges — private or government — or, raise MBBS seats in existing institutions.
As per the Union health ministry data, there are 1,07,950 MBBS seats in the country during the 2023-24 academic session.
“Taking these (court orders) aspects into consideration, and with an objective of providing the right teaching environment to the medical student and improving the overall quality of education, the provision of limiting undergraduate seats in each state to 100 per million population has been included in the recently notified MSR guidelines 2023,” the NMC statement said.
It is expected, said the regulator, that “this will reduce regional disparities in availability of healthcare professionals and will go a long way in ensuring effective quality of education”.
With this ratio there will still be potential for addition of about 40,000 MBBS seats in the country if the medical colleges are evenly distributed, the Commission said. This decision was applauded by various state branches of the Indian Medical Association, students’ associations, and the medical fraternity in general, it added.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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