Over 77,000 MBBS, PG medical seats added since 2020: Health Minister tells Parliament
New Delhi: According to the National Medical Commission's data, a total of 48,563 MBBS and 29,080 postgraduate medical seats increased in the country from the Academic Year 2020-2021 to 2025-2026, the Union Minister of State for Health, Smt Anupriya Patel informed the Rajya Sabha recently.
Minister Patel shared the details of the MBBS and PG medical seats that have increased during the last six years.
As per the information obtained from the National Medical Commission (NMC), the year-wise increase of MBBS & PG Medical seats is as follows:
- a total of 2963 MBBS and 4983 PG medical seats were increased during the academic year 2020-2021,
- 8790 MBBS and 4705 PG medical seats were increased during 2021-2022, 7398 MBBS and
- 2874 PG medical seats were increased during the academic year 2022-2023,
- 9652 MBBS and 4713 PG medical seats were increased during 2023-2024,
- 8641 MBBS and 4186 PG medical seats were increased during 2024-2025,
- 11119 MBBS and 7619 PG medical seats were increased during 2025-2026.
"As informed by National Medical Commission (NMC), there is an increase of 48,563 MBBS seats and 29,080 PG seats in the country from Academic Year 2020-21 to 2025-26. The details of the increase in MBBS and PG seats are enclosed at Annexure. Further, the Government has approved the addition of 10,023 medical seats under Centrally Sponsored Schemes across government colleges from financial year 2025-26 to 2028-29," informed the Union MoS Health.
These details were shared by the Minister in response to the queries raised in the Parliament regarding the number of additional MBBS and MD/MS seats approved and filled from 2020-21 to 2024-25, including the 10,023 newly sanctioned seats.
The other queries included the manner in which the expansion of medical seats has impacted each State’s doctor-population ratio including Rajasthan and what assessments or evaluations are available in this regard, whether the increase in domestic medical seats helped reduce students’ dependence on studying medicine abroad and what evidence supports this trend, whether the seats in medical colleges increased without compromising the quality of medical education, along with the details of steps taken by Government to enhance the quality of medical education.
Minister Patel explained that 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 Rajasthan. She added that the growing number of medical seats, coupled with improvements in infrastructure and faculty, has made domestic institutions more accessible to Indian students.
"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), Undergraduate 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," she added.
Number of MBBS seats from academic year 2020-21 to 2025-26:
Sr. No. | Academic Year | Increase in MBBS seats |
1 | 2020-21 | 2963 |
2 | 2021-22 | 8790 |
3 | 2022-23 | 7398 |
4 | 2023-24 | 9652 |
5 | 2024-25 | 8641 |
6 | 2025-26 | 11119 |
Number of PG seats from academic year 2020-21 to 2025-26:
Sr. No. | Academic Year | Increase in PG seats |
1 | 2020-21 | 4983 |
2 | 2021-22 | 4705 |
3 | 2022-23 | 2874 |
4 | 2023-24 | 4713 |
5 | 2024-25 | 4186 |
6 | 2025-26 | 7619 |
