Medical seats at UG, PG level may increase by around 8,000 this academic year: NMC chief

The number of undergraduate and postgraduate medical seats in the country is expected to see a cumulative increase of around 8,000 this academic year, and an assessments of medical colleges is underway, National Medical Commission chief Dr Abhijat Sheth has said.

Counselling for the NEET-UG is already underway and the first round has been completed. The second round of counselling is expected to start by August 25.

There are concerns about the number of medical seats decreasing this year after the CBI busted a network of officials of Union health ministry, National Medical Commission (NMC), intermediaries and representatives of private medical colleges allegedly involved in a litany of “egregious” acts, including corruption and unlawful manipulation of the regulatory framework governing medical colleges, in July this year.

When the CBI probe began, the NMC had put on hold the process for increasing the number of seats or starting new courses.

The agency had named 34 people in an FIR, including eight health ministry officials, a National Health Authority official and five doctors who were part of the NMC inspection team.

In an interview, Dr Sheth said, “Along with my appointment, the president of the Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB) also has been appointed. We have taken up completion of inspection of UG medical seats on a priority basis and



the assessments are under progress.” “We expect an increase of roughly around 8,000 seats (UG and PG seats combined) based on the number of applications we have received in this academic year,” he said.

Presently, there are 1,18,098 UG seats with 59,782 in government and 58,316 in private. The number of PG seats is 53,960 with 30,029 in government and 23,931 in private.

On the total number of MBBS seats decreasing as compared to the last academic session, Dr Sheth said, “Because of the ongoing (CBI) inquiry, the numbers of UG seats may have reduced. However, overall, the number of seats is eventually going to increase by 8,000 or even more after the completion of the total inspection process.” For the PG counselling, Dr Sheth said the process for the inspections of medical college, which have applied for new PG seats, has been initiated and that the counselling for it is going to take place in September. “We are confident that new seats will also be added to the PG counselling process,” he said.

Asked when the National Exit Test (NExT) for final year MBBS students, as envisaged in the NMC Act, will be held, Dr Sheth termed the exam as a “novel concept”, but stressed that consensus among all stakeholders have to be reached.

He added that concerns of students about the exam need to be addressed before conducting it, saying its implementation “will take a while”.