48,563 MBBS seats added in last 6 years: MoS Health tells Parliament

New Delhi: The central government has informed the parliament that 48,563 new MBBS seats have been added across medical colleges in the country over the last six academic years.

Responding to queries in the Lok Sabha, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel said that, as per data from the National Medical Commission (NMC), the increase of 48,563 MBBS seats has taken place from the Academic Year 2020–21 to 2025–26.

The Minister shared that 2,963 MBBS seats were added in 2020–21, followed by 8,790 seats in 2021–22. In 2022–23, 7,398 seats were added, while 9,652 seats were added in 2023–24. Further, 8,641 seats were increased in 2024–25, and 11,119 seats were added in 2025–26.

Apart from this, the government has also approved 10,023 additional medical seats under Centrally Sponsored Schemes in government medical colleges. These seats will be added from the financial year 2025–26 to 2028–29.

The information was shared in response to questions regarding the year-wise addition of MBBS seats, their distribution between government and private colleges, their impact on the doctor-population ratio, especially in states like Uttar Pradesh and whether the increase in domestic medical seats helped reduce students’ dependence on studying medicine abroad and what evidence supports this trend in the country.

According to the Minister, the expansion of medical seats reduces the gap in the healthcare workforce, particularly in underserved regions and has a direct bearing on the doctor-population ratio across States, including Uttar Pradesh. The growing number of medical seats, coupled with improvements in infrastructure and faculty, has made domestic institutions more accessible to Indian students.

She further added, "NMC, as an apex regulatory body entrusted with the responsibility of maintaining the quality of medical education has notified various Regulations namely Minimum Standards Requirement (MSR), Graduate Medical Education Regulations (GMER), 2023, Maintenance of Standards of Medical Education Regulations, 2023 (MSMER-2023) and Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME) Curriculum Guidelines 2024 to ensure the adherence to prescribed standards in medical education. These regulations are designed to uphold the integrity and quality of medical education and training across the country."

Details of the number of MBBS seats from academic year 2020-21 to 2025-26: