NMC to hike UG med seats from 82k to 1L by next year

 NMC to hike UG med seats from 82k to 1L by next year

Bharat.Yagnik@timesgroup.com

Ahmedabad:  19.07.2021 

The National Medical Commission (NMC) under the ministry of health and family welfare is working out a plan to increase the total number of undergraduate medical seats to 1 lakh by next year, sources said.

This was discussed at a recent meeting of NMC chaired by the Union health secretary. “There are presently 82,500 MBBS seats across the country and the government plans to take it to 1 lakh in a year’s time,” a government official said. There are nearly 540 medical colleges in the country that offer MBBS courses, 49% of which are government run and the rest self-financed and on public-private-partnership basis.

“The process for adding new medical colleges and increasing seats for MBBS is presently on,” Dr Aruna Vanikar, president of the undergraduate medical education board of NMC, said. Sources in Gujarat medical education fraternity said Gujarat has 5,500-odd UG medical seats and is likely to get three more colleges.

The government is exploring the option of running medical colleges in two shifts to increase the number of student intake. A similar plan is being worked out in different parts of the country too, sources added.