Gone on Hold: NMC Keeps 150 MBBS seat limit imposed on Medical Colleges on Abeyance

New Delhi: In a major relief to the medical colleges, the National Medical Commission (NMC) has put the upper limit of 150 seats for the MBBS course on hold. 

Even though the MSR 2023 guidelines had specified that medical colleges seeking an increase in medical seats cannot exceed 150 MBBS seats, the Apex Medical Commission has decided to keep these rules on abeyance for the academic year 2025-2026.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that releasing the "Guidelines for Under Graduate Courses under Establishment of New Medical Institutions, Starting of New Medical Courses, Increase of Seats for Existing Courses & Assessment and Rating Regulations, 2023", which were published in the official Gazette on August 16, 2023, NMC had stated that the intake capacity for the new medical colleges being set up from the academic year 2024-2025 would be restricted to a maximum number of 150 MBBS seats.

While specifying the objectives of the 2023 guidelines, NMC mentioned, "These regulations shall be applicable for Medical Colleges being established from the academic session 2024-25 onwards. Applications for establishing new undergraduate medical education colleges shall be allowed only for 50/100/150 seats."

Also Read: NMC Rule to Cap MBBS Seats per population on Hold till Academic Year 2024-25: MoS Health informs Parliament

These guidelines also mentioned that after the Academic Year 2023-2024, the Letter of Permission (LoP) for starting new medical colleges would be issued only for an annual intake capacity of 50/100/150 seats, provided that medical college shall follow the ratio of 100 MBBS seats for 10 lakh population in that State/U.T. However, these rules were put on hold for a year after the Health Ministry faced a pushback in this regard from the States.

Recently, issuing a notice on 19.12.2024, the Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB) of NMC specified the conditions to apply for the establishment of new medical colleges/institutions intending to offer MBBS courses and increase of MBBS seats in an established medical institute for the Academic Year 2025-2026.

NMC MARB mentioned in the notice that the medical college/institute applying for new medical colleges or increase of MBBS seats would have to strictly comply with the relevant Regulations, MSR Documents, Guidelines, relevant orders, notices and circulars issued by the NMC and other authorities from time to time.

Also Read: What are the conditions to apply for new medical colleges, MBBS seat increase? NMC specifies

The Commission also referred to the MSR rule of specifying an upper limit of 150 MBBS students from the academic year 2024-2025 which states the following:

"(i) College seeking increased number of seats cannot exceed a total of 150 MBBS students from the year 2024-25. Provided that medical college shall follow the ratio of 100 MBBS seats for 10 lakh population in the state/U.T."

Referring to the MSR rule of specifying an upper limit of 150 MBBS students, NMC mentioned, "The following Objective mentioned under Chapter-I of UG-MSR 2023 notified on 16/08/2023, are kept in abeyance for Academic year (AY:2025-26)."

As per the latest media report by Babushahi.com, MP Sanjeev Arora referred to the NMC decision of putting the 150 MBBS seats on hold, mentioning it to be "...landmark decision enables colleges to apply for additional seats based on their infrastructure."

He had written letters to both J P Nadda and Mandaviya mentioning that "there is a cap of 150 MBBS seats for all Medical Colleges. This has an ambiguity as Medical Colleges with history cannot be in same league as new hospitals. His suggestion is that older Medical Colleges should be eligible for more MBBS seats as long as they fulfill the criteria of infrastructure."

Also Read: NMC Guidelines Put 150 MBBS Seats Intake Cap on New Medical Colleges set up from next year