More than 12 lakh Allopathy Doctors, 7.8 lakh AYUSH doctors in India: Health Minister

The aggregate on the number of doctors surfaced recently during a Rajya Sabha session where the Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoS Health) Ashwini Kumar Choubey replied to the questions put forward by member MR Bhunia regarding the number of trained allopathy doctors in our country and the ratio of doctors and patients.

The Minister informed that as per information provided by Board of Governors in supersession of Medical Council of India (MCI BoG), there are a total 12,01,354 allopathic doctors registered with the State Medical Councils/Medical Council of India as on 30th September 2019.

Assuming 80% availability, it is estimated that around 9.61 lakh doctors may be actually available for active service. It gives a doctor-population ratio of 1:1404 as per current population estimate of 1.35 billion, which is lower than the WHO norm of 1:1000.

Besides, there are 7.88 lakh Ayurveda, Unani and Homeopathy (AUH) doctors in the country. Assuming 80% availability, it is estimated that around 6.30 lakh Ayurveda, Unani and Homeopathy (AUH) doctors may be actually available for service and considered together with allopathic doctors, it gives a doctor population ratio of 1:848.

The data presented by the MoS Health indicates that the maximum number of allopathic doctors are practising in the state of Maharashtra with 1,79,783 doctors followed by Tamil Nadu and Karnataka with 1,38,821 and 1,24,663 respectively.

Over 52,666 doctors are registered directly with MCI. They are presumably working in States / UTs which do not have a medical register or anywhere in the country.

Next comes Andhra Pradesh with 1,00,587 registered doctors and UP with 81,348. Delhi is recorded to have only 24,999 doctors, while Haryana has 12,345 and Kerala, has 60,565 allopathy professionals.

74,054 doctors are working in West Bengal and 69746 are in Gujarat.

Surprisingly, Telangana has only 7,931 doctors. The states with less than 5,000 doctors are Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim.

Number of Doctors Registered with State Medical Councils / Medical Council of India as on 30th September 2019

S. No.	Name of the State	Number of Registered Doctors
1.	Andhra Pradesh	100587
2.	Arunachal Pradesh	1021
3.	Assam	23902
4.	Bihar	44642
5.	Chattisgarh	9355
6.	Delhi	24999
7.	Goa	3890
8.	Gujarat	69746
9.	Haryana	12345
10.	Himachal	3054
11.	Jammu & Kashmir	15422
12.	Jharkhand	6468
13.	Karnataka	124663
14.	Madhya Pradesh	39044
15.	Maharashtra	179783
16.	Kerala	60565
17.	Mizoram	74
18.	Nagaland	134
19.	Orissa	22521
20.	Punjab	48351
21.	Rajasthan	43992
22.	Sikkim	1414
23.	Tamil Nadu	138821
24.	Uttar Pradesh	81348
25.	Uttarakhand	8617
26.	West Bengal	74054
27.	Tripura	1945
28.	Telangana	7931
29.	Medical Council of India*	52666
	Total	12,01,354

Note - The other State / UTs do not have their own Medical Registration Council. Hence, their workers get registration with the Councils of other neighbouring States.