Karnataka Opposes NMC Rule of 100 MBBS Seats for 10 Lakh Population Ratio

Bengaluru: The Karnataka Government has expressed strong opposition to the National Medical Commission's (NMC) newly introduced rules that restricted the State Governments or Union Territories from adding more than 100 MBBS seats for every 10 lakh population.

Terming this rule to be "regressive", the State Minister of Medical Education Sharan Prakash Patil opined that this rule will affect the medical education in Karnataka. He further pointed out how the Commission did not discuss about implementing this rule with the stakeholders. In fact, the State plans to write to the Commission in this regard expressing its opposition to the new norm, informed the Minister.

"This is a regressive step and will affect medical education in the state. The government has plans for more institutions. We do not know the reasons they are assigning for this move. How will they assess the population when there has been no recent census? The stakeholders weren't consulted about this. We will write to the NMC that this is not acceptable and is not in consonance with our future plans," Minister Patil told TOI.

This rule prescribing the ratio between the population and the number of medical seats in a particular State/UT was announced by the Apex Medical Commission in the recently released "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". These Guidelines were published in the official Gazette on August 16, 2023.

According to the Guidelines, the intake capacity for the new medical colleges being set up from the academic year 2024-2025 will be restricted to a maximum number of 150 MBBS seats and the medical colleges have to follow the ratio of 100 MBBS seats for 10 lakh population in that concerned State/U.T.

Also Read: More Population, more medical colleges, less population, less medical colleges- Is it good for advanced states?

"After A.Y. 2023-24, Letter of permission (LOP) for starting of new medical colleges shall be issued only for 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.," stated the Guidelines.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that due to this rule, several southern states such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Telangana might lose their eligibility to apply for any new medical college or add more MBBS seats.

In the case of Karnataka, the projected population is 6.76 crore, and on the other hand, the total number of medical seats in the State is 11020. As per the NMC rule, Karnataka should have around 6770 medical seats and it has already crossed the mark set by the NMC.

These new NMC rules come at a time when the Government has ambitious plans to set up one medical college in every district. As per the latest media report by the Times of India, the issue was discussed at a meeting of the government council of the government medical colleges of the State at Vidhana Soudha on Wednesday.

Commenting on the matter, the Director of Medical Education, Sujatha Rathod the Daily, "The plan is to start new medical colleges in districts and have more government seats to benefit the common man. We're looking at having more seats for the poor meritorious students, and increasing services to common man as we will always have compulsory service too. We also don't have equal distribution of doctors in urban and rural areas, with the latter lacking accessibility to healthcare. The NMC has also not mentioned the reasons for this decision. We will therefore be writing to them soon."

Earlier this year, the Union Minister of State for Health, Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar informed the Rajya Sabha about the total number of UG and PG medical seats in each of the States/UTs.

As per the data provided by MoS Health, there are 67 medical colleges in Karnataka with 11020 MBBS seats. Among these, 23 government medical colleges have 3525 MBBS seats and there are altogether 7495 MBBS seats in 44 private medical colleges.

TOI adds that on average, every year NMC receives applications for about 60 medical colleges and among them, 10 applications come from the Southern States.

While the State Government has opposed the new NMC rules, some of the experts have welcomed the decision. One such expert told TOI, "Karnataka has around 70 colleges now. It's time that the government looked at improving the standards of the existing medical colleges rather than building newer ones."

Also Read: NMC Notifies Guidelines for MBBS Course under Establishment of New Medical Institutions, Starting of New Courses, Increase of Seats, Assessment and Rating Regulations 2023