Cap of MBBS seats intake to 150 for new medical colleges from 2024, no new institute within 15 km of existing one: NMC

New Delhi: The intake capacity for which the new medical colleges can apply to the National Medical Commission (NMC) is likely to be restricted to a total number of 150 MBBS Seats from the next academic year i.e. 2024-2025.

This change has been introduced by the Apex medical commission in the recently released draft NMC Minimum Standard Requirements for Establishment of New Medical College/Increase of seats in the MBBS Course Regulations, 2023.

With the implementation of these draft regulations, there will be a 40 per cent cut in the upper limit of 250 MBBS students for which medical colleges are currently allowed to admit.

According to the Minimum Requirements for Annual MBBS Admissions Regulations, 2000, "Medical Colleges shall be established with an annual intake capacity of 100 /150 MBBS Admissions annually and thereafter can be increased to 150/200/250 MBBS Admissions Annually. The phase-wise Requirements to be fulfilled by the applicant colleges for obtaining Letter of Intent and Letter of Permission for Establishment of New Medical College or Increase in Annual intake& Yearly Renewals for 100/150/200/250 M.B.B.S. admissions annually shall be in accordance with Annexure I, II, III, and IV of these Regulations."

However, these rules are likely to be changed with the implementation of new NMC Draft regulations released on June 23, 2023. According to the NMC Draft, applications for establishing new medical colleges shall be allowed only for 50/100/150 seats. The draft rules also specified that a new medical college cannot come up within 15 km of an existing one.

"After A.Y. 2023-24, Letter of permission (LOP) for starting of new medical colleges shall be issued only for annual intake capacity of 50/100/150 seats, provided that no medical college exists in that geographical area covering a population of 10,00,000 (>10 lakhs) and above. While issuing the Essentiality Certificate, State Government/UTs is required to ensure coverage of minimum 10 Lakhs population for 100 MBBS seats and also minimum distance of 15 KM between two medical colleges," NMC proposed in the Draft.

The Draft further mentioned, "Colleges applying for establishment from the year 2024-25, shall apply with these requirements for a strength, not exceeding 150 MBBS students. Colleges seeking increased number of seats cannot exceed a total of 150 MBBS students from the year 2024-25."

"With the exception that colleges who have applied for academic year 2023-24 for increased seats but failed to get the same, can ask for the same number (totalling 200 or 250) that was in their previous application for one time in the year 2024-25 only," it added.

Further, the new Draft guidelines make it mandatory for the colleges to have 24 departments. These departments will also include Integrative Medical Research. Apart from this, NMC has also mentioned that it is "desirable" for the colleges to start a Yoga department with a minimum of one make and one female Yoga instructor/ trainer to train the students and faculty in Yoga.

Besides, NMC has asked the medical colleges to install and maintain Aadhar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS), close circuit camera and HIMS and other Information Technology as prescribed from time to time. NMC has also made it mandatory for the faculty and resident doctors to have at least 75% attendance of the total working days (excluding vacations).

Also Read: NMC Releases Draft Regulations of Minimum Standard Requirements for Establishment of New Medical College, Increase in MBBS Seats, invites comments