AIIMS MBBS 2018: 100 new seats available with inclusion of new campuses

New Delhi: As many as 100 new MBBS seats will be available for admission to All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). The admission notification for AIIMS for the academic year 2018 revealed that the exam will now offer admissions to two additional AIIMS institutes - AIIMS Guntur and AIIMS Nagpur, thereby increasing the number of seats available for MBBS admissions.

Until 2008, the AIIMS entrance exam used to offer only 50 seats for MBBS aspirants in the New Delhi campus. This was increased to 72 that year while from 2013 onwards, 6 new AIIMS in Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Jodhpur, Patna, Raipur and Rishikesh were also opened, with 100 new seats with each new campus. Last year, the New Delhi campus also began to offer 100 seats, with an additional 7 seats for foreigners, taking the total number of seats offered through the AIIMS MBBS entrance to 707.

As declared in the AIIMS 2018 notification, this number is set to increase with the inclusion of AIIMS Guntur and AIIMS Nagpur from this year onwards. The two new AIIMS campuses, the first of their kind to be opened in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra respectively, are expected to begin operating from temporary campuses this year and will therefore offer 50 seats each through AIIMS MBBS 2018 until the number is increased in the coming years. While this brings the total number of seats offered through AIIMS MBBS 2018 to 807, the severity of the competition will remain the same with the exam expected to attract over 2 lakh candidates this year.

Perhaps keeping this number in mind, another major change which has been introduced to the national level medical entrance exam is in the number of exam dates. For the first time, AIIMS MBBS will be held over a period of two days in a total of four slots. Candidates will be randomly allotted a slot and the eventual score obtained by them will be subject to a normalization procedure to produce a fair result. AIIMS MBBS, conducted by AIIMS New Delhi, is one of two examinations (the other being JIPMER MBBS) held outside the purview of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test. Collectively, these exams offer admissions to a total of around 65,000 MBBS seats.

The new additions

With the participation of AIIMS Guntur and AIIMS Nagpur, the total number of operational AIIMS institutions in the country has now risen to nine.

As the campuses of AIIMS Guntur and AIIMS Nagpur are still under construction, the upcoming academic session will run from temporary campuses. The 2018-19 MBBS academic session for AIIMS Guntur, officially known as AIIMS Manglagiri, will temporarily begin from the campus of Siddharta Medical College, Vijayawada, until the permanent AIIMS campus in the neighbouring district of Guntur comes up. Similarly, the academic session of AIIMS Nagpur will begin operations from the campus of Government Medical College and Hospital, Nagpur, until AIIMS Nagpur becomes operational. There are an additional 13 AIIMS in the pipeline which will be added to the purview of the AIIMS MBBS entrance examination in the coming years. This, coupled with the Government’s plan to open 24 new medical colleges as announced in the 2018-19 Union Budget, should lead to a substantial increase in the number of seats available for MBBS admissions in the country.