Health Ministry Nod: 600 More MBBS Seats Added to Uttar Pradesh Seat Matrix

Lucknow: In a major boost to undergraduate medical education in Uttar Pradesh, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has approved the start of MBBS admission at five new medical colleges in the State with 100 MBBS seats each. Apart from these newly approved MBBS seats, the number of seats at the medical colleges in Kanpur Dehat and Lalitpur was further increased from 50 to 100 MBBS seats.

Therefore, altogether 600 more MBBS seats have now been added to the seat matrix of Uttar Pradesh taking the total number of new MBBS seats for the academic year 2024-2025 to 1,200, reports PTI

With this, UP now has altogether 11,200 MBBS seats, and among these 5,150 seats are in government medical colleges and 6,050 seats in private medical colleges.

Also Read: UP: After denying permission to 13 medical colleges, NMC Grants Permission to 7 New Medical Colleges

Confirming the inclusion of new MBBS seats, the Director General of Medical Education, Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday told PTI, "We got permission for Gonda Kaushambi, Chandauli, Kheri and Auraiya with 100 MBBS seats each."

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that UP Government had applied for 13 new medical colleges in the State with an intake capacity for 1300 MBBS seats. These proposed new medical colleges were developed in Sultanpur, Kushinagar, Kaushambi, Kanpur Dehat, Lalitpur, Pilibhit, Auraiya, Sonbhadra, Bulandshahr, Gonda, Bijnor, Chandauli and Lakhimpur Kheri districts.

However, NMC denied granting its nod after shortcomings were pointed out during the inspection, including deficiencies in the infrastructure and faculty strength. Later, NMC granted a Letter of Permission (LoP) to seven of these thirteen proposed new medical colleges in Uttar Pradesh. 

These seven medical colleges that had received the NMC nod were located in Bijnor, Bulandshahr, Kushinagar, Pilibhit, Sultanpur, Kanpur Dehat and Lalitpur districts and together they have an intake capacity of 600 MBBS seats.

After NMC denied permitting six colleges, the Uttar Pradesh Directorate of Medical Education and Training applied for review but could not get success. Later, it applied to the Union Health Ministry under the rules and permission for five new medical colleges were granted.  Only the medical college in Sombhadra has still not received the permission and for this, the Department will file a fresh application. 

DG Medical Education, Kinjal Singh told PTI, "The department recently submitted an appeal to the Union Health Ministry requesting approval for 100 MBBS seats at autonomous state medical colleges in Auraiya, Chandauli, Gonda, Lakhimpur Kheri, and Kaushambi. We also sought permission to increase the MBBS seats from 50 to 100 at Kanpur Dehat and Lalitpur. As a result, the ministry has granted approval for 100 MBBS seats at all these medical colleges."

Currently, the State Government is working on one district one medical college programme and under this, 14 new medical college will start admitting students soon. Currently, there are 70 medical colleges in the State while some of the districts have more than one medical college.

Also Read: UP appeals NMC to allow MBBS Admissions at 13 New Medical Colleges