38 Medical Colleges approved this year by Centre, maximum in TN, UP

Among these Indian States which have been benefitted from the new medical colleges, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu come in the first place as a total number of nine and eleven new medical colleges have been approved in these States respectively.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that MoS Health, Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar had earlier revealed before the Parliament back in July that a total number of 558 medical colleges were operative in the country with an intake capacity of 83,275 MBBS seats and 42,720 PG seats.

She had also referred to the centrally sponsored scheme for "Establishment of new medical colleges attached with existing district/referral hospitals", and had informed the Parliament that a total number of 157 medical colleges had been approved in three phases.

However, after that, a number of medical colleges have been approved by the National Medical Commission.

Also Read: NMC approves 7 new Medical Colleges in UP, 700 MBBS seats to be added

Uttar Pradesh:

Back in July, the Uttar Pradesh Government had announced setting up nine medical colleges.

Recently, the National Medical Commission (NMC), the apex medical education regulatory body in the country approved seven out of nine new medical colleges in the State.

The medical colleges which received a nod from NMC, are situated at Deoria, Etah, Ghazipur, Hardoi, Mirzapur, Pratapgarh, and Siddharth Nagar.

Later, medical colleges in Jaunpur and Fatehpur had also received approval from NMC and Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the nine medical colleges.

Tamil Nadu:

Among the 11 newly constructed medical colleges in Tamil Nadu, at first, the Central Government had given its nod to add 850 MBBS seats to Tamil Nadu in seven out of eleven newly constituted medical colleges. The medical colleges which had received NMC nod are located at Virudhunagar, Kallakurichi, Ooty, Namakkal, Tiruvallur, Tirupur, and Ramanathapuram.

After the State rectified the deficiencies pointed out by the NMC team, the Central Government had permitted the State for 600 more MBBS seats in the four new government medical colleges at Krishnagiri, Dindigul, Nagapattinam, and Ariyalur.

With this, a total number of 1,450 MBBS seats were added to Tamil Nadu in this Academic year in 11 new medical colleges.

Also Read: With 17 New Institutes, Tamil Nadu now has highest number of medical colleges

Apart from these two States, NMC has approved 100 MBBS seats in Karjat Medical College, 100 MBBS seats in the first private medical college of Jharkhand, 100 MBBS seats in Lakhimpur medical college, 100 MBBS seats in Mohali Medical College. NMC has also approved the long-pending approval for Dumka Medical College in Jharkhand. It has also given its nod for 100 MBBS seats at Pune Medical College, a private medical college in Manipur, and many more.

As per the latest media report by the New Indian Express, a total number of 38 new medical colleges have been approved by the Central Government in the 2021-2022 academic session and among them, 24 medical colleges are run by the Government.

The daily further adds that when compared to the MBBS seats that were available in India during 2020-2021 academic year, the number of UG medical seats have risen from 83,275 to 88,120- around 6 per cent.

In fact, the number of medical colleges which have been approved this year is the third-highest approvals since 2014, adds NIE. Back in 2014, there were 404 medical colleges in India with an intake capacity of 54,348 MBBS seats.

Speaking to NIE regarding this rise in the number of medical colleges, an official in the medical education department said, "The rise in medical colleges is in line with our aim to provide at least one medical college for every district in India and we are also on track of upgrading many district hospitals into full-fledged medical colleges." He further added that this serves both the purposes of providing secondary and tertiary healthcare services to patients in districts and also raising the patient-doctor ratio in India.

Meanwhile, while commenting on the issue, a senior faculty with the University College of Medical Sciences in New Delhi welcomed the Government's focus and opining that the quality of teaching and learning shouldn't be compromised he said, "Faculty shortage is a major problem in most medical colleges in India. There are reports that not only private institutes but even government colleges are relying on teachers on temporary basis. This does not speak too well about the quality of education in medical colleges."

"Another major problem is lack of proper infrastructure which has not kept pace with the fast speed of increased seats and that should also be seriously addressed," he added.