Medical Education in India transformed in the last decade: Former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant

New Delhi: The last 10 years have transformed medical education and have added more to the country, Amitabh Kant, the G20 Sherpa and former NITI Aayog CEO recently stated.

“Decade of transformation in Indian medical education! Finally more Doctors in India,” he wrote in a post on X.

He said that in the years between 2013-14 to 2023-24, medical colleges have “doubled” to more than 800, “with the National Medical Commission (NMC) now green-lighting 112 new medical colleges”, as quoted by IANS.

“A quantum leap by India towards ensuring a bright and greatly accessible future of medical education for the country,” he said.

Earlier in February, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya told Lok Sabha that the doctor-population ratio in the country stands at 1:834. He said it is better than the WHO standard of 1:1000. The minister citing NMC data shared that there are 13,08,009 registered Allopathic doctors and 5.65 lakh Ayush doctors.

India has a total number of 1,08,940 MBBS and 70,645 Postgraduate medical seats, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya informed the Lok Sabha in February this year..

As per the data provided by the Union Health Minister, when compared with the seat and medical college matrix before 2014, the medical colleges have been increased by 82%, MBBS seats by 112% and the PG medical seats have been increased by 127%.

Among these, the highest number of medical colleges is in Tamil Nadu, which has altogether 74 medical colleges. However, Karnataka has the highest number of MBBS seats i.e. 11745 MBBS seats. The number of private medical colleges is highest in Karnataka i.e. 46 for the academic year 2023-2024. Karnataka also has the highest i.e. 6449 postgraduate medical seats and most of these PG seats are available in the private medical institutes.