UP, Karnataka Dethrone Tamil Nadu for Most Medical Colleges
MBBS Seats
Chennai: After retaining its position as the State having the maximum number of medical colleges and MBBS seats, Tamil Nadu has now lost this position to Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka respectively.
Until 2023, Tamil Nadu had the maximum number of MBBS seats and medical colleges. However, the State Health Department has failed to add new medical colleges or increase MBBS seats in the existing medical colleges in the past two years, TOI has reported.
According to the Union Health Ministry data, for the academic year 2023-2024, India had 1,08,940 MBBS seats, which has now been increased to 1,18,137 MBBS seats for 2024-2025.
Recently, sharing the data regarding the seat matrix, the Union Minister of State for Health Smt Anupriya Patel informed the Lok Sabha that among these 1,18,137 MBBS seats, 60,422 seats are available in the government medical colleges and 57,715 MBBS seats are available in the private medical colleges.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that the data shared by the Union MoS Health had also revealed that Karnataka has the maximum number (12545) of MBBS seats, followed by 12425 MBBS seats in Uttar Pradesh, and 12050 MBBS seats in Tamil Nadu.
For the medical colleges, the Health Ministry data revealed that the highest number of medical colleges i.e. 86 medical colleges are available in Uttar Pradesh, followed by 80 medical colleges in Maharashtra, 77 medical colleges in Tamil Nadu, 73 medical colleges in Karnataka and 65 medical colleges in Telangana.
While Tamil Nadu has no longer the maximum number of medical colleges or MBBS seats, Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that Health Ministry had data last year had revealed that Tamil Nadu had the maximum i.e. 11,275 MBBS seats, followed by Karnataka having 10,995 seats.
The data from earlier this year revealed that among the 1,09,940 MBBS seats, Karnataka had the highest i.e. 11745 MBBS seats. However, Tamil Nadu had the highest number i.e. 74 medical colleges.
Under the existing rules, NMC- the Apex Medical Education Regulatory Body grants letter of permission to start a medical college only after ensuring that the applicant college has the required number of faculties, staff and other infrastructure as per the NMC norms. For this, NMC conducts physical assessment of the applicant college.
In the case of Tamil Nadu, among the 76 available medical colleges in the State, 36 colleges are run by the State Health Department. The Times of India has reported that no new government medical colleges were started in Tamil Nadu since eleven new colleges were established in 2021.
The Central Government often provides financial and technical support to the States and UTs for strengthening the healthcare systems based on requirements posted by them in the programme implementation plans with their overall resource envelope. TN Health Minister Ma Subramanian informed TOI that the State had sought funds from the Centre to start new medical colleges in six districts.
He said, "It is the policy of the state to start at least one medical college in every district. We make a request every time we meet the Union health minister. Our district collectors have also been asked to look for land parcels." However, despite all this, no additional seats have been added to the government medical colleges in the State.
Commenting on the matter, the Director of Medical Education Dr J Sangumani had earlier informed TOI that the State Health Department had sought NMC approval to increase 50 UG medical seats in each of the 11 medical colleges started in 2021. Had the State received the nod, Tamil Nadu would increase its seats in 36 government medical colleges by 550 MBBS seats to 5,600 seats for admissions in 2025-2026.
