There is an increase of 82 percent in medical colleges in India: Health Ministry

New Delhi: Stating that there has been an increase in the number of medical colleges and MBBS seats across the country, the Health Ministry on Tuesday said that there is an increase of 82 per cent in medical colleges from 387 before 2014 to 706 as of now.

There is an increase of 112 per cent in MBBS seats from 51,348 before 2014 to 1,08,940 as of now. There is also an increase of 127 per cent in PG seats from 31,185 before 2014 to 70,674 as of now.

Informing this in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Bharati Pravin Pawar said that as per the National Medical Commission and Indian Nursing Council, there are a total of 706 medical colleges and 2268 nursing colleges in the country as of now.

"A total of 1,08,940 MBBS students and 120585 nurses will graduate in the academic year 2023-24. Further, no centralised data is maintained by the Ministry of these health workers who are going abroad after acquiring qualification in the country," she said.

There are 13,08,009 allopathic doctors registered with the State Medical Councils and the National Medical Commission (NMC) as of June 2022. "Assuming 80 per cent availability of registered allopathic doctors and 5.65 lakh AYUSH doctors, the doctor-population ratio in the country is 1:834. Further, as per the Indian Nursing Council (INC) records, there are 36.14 lakh registered nursing personnel in the country resulting in a nurse-to-population ratio of 2.10 nurses per thousand population,” the minister said.

Tamil Nadu with 74 colleges tops the list of such States having maximum medical colleges followed by Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra 68 each and Telangana 56.

In another reply on whether the number of medical seats remained vacant in PG and UG in the current academic session along with the reasons, Pawar said that the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) conducts the counselling for seats of (UG/PG) courses as per the scheme devised by the Supreme Court of India.

“In the current academic year, the total number of vacant UG seats is 485 as informed by the National Medical Commission. The percentile has been dropped to zero for PG admission to fill up the vacant seats, and therefore every candidate who appeared in NEET-PG becomes eligible to participate in counselling. Special stray vacancy rounds have been conducted for PG counselling in the current academic year to fill the seats. 247 seats under All India Quota for PGs have been reported to be vacant,” she said.

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