NMC charges ₹2L one-time fee for colleges to hike MBBS seats, PG intake up 450 so far

NMC charges ₹2L one-time fee for colleges to hike MBBS seats, PG intake up 450 so far

Anuja.Jaiswal@timesofindia.com  08.01.2026

New Delhi : The National Medical Commission has so far cleared around 450 additional postgraduate (PG) medical seats for the 2025–26 academic year through the appeal process. It has also introduced a non-refundable one-time registration fee of Rs 2 lakh plus 18% GST and removed the earlier cap that limited applications for an increase of up to 100 MBBS seats at a time. 

On PG admissions, Dr M K Ramesh, president of Medical Assessment and Rating Board, told TOI, PG seat approvals by the first appeal committee are cumulative and ongoing. While earlier notices cited 171 and later 262 additional seats, the total cleared through appeals so far is around 450, with further additions possible. The additional PG seats — mostly incremental increases of one to four seats per programme— span high-demand specialties, including general medicine, radiodiagnosis, dermatology, paediatrics, orthopaedics, obstetrics and gynaecology, psychiatry and general surgery, across medical colleges. 

Most of these seats have gone to private medical colleges, though some govt institutions are also included, as per the available list. MARB has directed counselling authorities to include the newly sanctioned PG seats without waiting for individual Letters of Permission (LoPs), treating the consolidated list uploaded on the NMC website as a valid document for counselling. Officials said publishing consolidated appeal approvals online was introduced to speed up admissions and improve transparency. 

Separately, NMC has introduced a non-refundable onetime registration fee of Rs 2 lakh plus 18% GST for institutions seeking to start new MBBS colleges or increase undergraduate seats from the 2026–27 academic year. Explaining the move, Dr Ramesh said the fee is aimed at ensuring serious intent and accountability, stressing that establishing a medical college cannot be treated  as a routine business decision. He said the registration fee is separate from the existing application fee of Rs 5 lakh for 50 MBBS seats, which rises with higher intake, and only partly offsets the cost of inspections, including travel and stay for three to five assessors conducting multi-day assessments. On MBBS expansion, Dr Ramesh said the earlier cap allowing applications for a maximum increase of 100 MBBS seats at a time was withdrawn because it had no explicit backing in existing regulations and could not be legally sustained.