Limiting MBBS seats will reduce "regional disparities" among healthcare professionals: NMC

NEW DELHI: Limiting medical seats to 100 per a million population is expected to “reduce regional disparities” in availability of healthcare professionals, the National Medical Commission stated. NMC issued a statement regarding restrictions on starting new medical colleges.

The commission explained that many courts had made observations on crowding of medical colleges and had cautioned NMC about it. Thus, it took the decision to limit the seats in order to ensure quality medical education.

“Taking these aspects into consideration, and with an objective of providing the right teaching environment to the medical student and improving the overall quality of education, the provision of limiting UG seats in each state to 100 per million population has been included in the recently notified MSR guidelines 2023. It is expected that this will reduce regional disparities in availability of healthcare professionals and will go a long way in ensuring effective quality of education,” NMC said in the official statement.

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The commission added that with the ratio of 100 seats per one million population, there will still be a potential of adding 40,000 MBBS seats in the country if the medical colleges are distributed evenly.

In its "Guidelines for Under Graduate Courses under Establishment of New Medical Institutions, Starting of New Medical Courses, Increase of Seats for Existing Courses and Assessment and Rating Regulations, 2023", NMC stated that the Letter of Permission (LoP) for starting new medical colleges shall be issued only for an annual intake capacity of 50, 100, or 150 MBBS seats, provided that the medical college shall follow the ratio of 100 MBBS seats for 10 lakh population in that state or Union Territory (UT).

The commission took pride in the fact that its decision has been praised by various state branches of Indian Medical Association (IMA), students’ associations, and medical fraternity in general.

NMC also said that the Under Graduate Medical Education Board (UGMEB) is committed to provide quality and affordable medical education and ensures “adequate” and “high-quality” medical professionals.

Recently, Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin had called NMC’s decision as “regressive” and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct the union health ministry to the NMC notification in abeyance.