Centre To Carry Out Study To Examine Need For Additional MBBS And PG Medical Seats

The central government will conduct a study in order to estimate how many more MBBS and post-graduate medical seats are needed in India; the figure would be used to set a threshold after which no more new medical institutes are allowed to open and no additional seats are allowed in colleges which exist now, reports The New Indian Express.

Currently, the government aims to add one lakh more MBBS seats, and 60,000 post-graduate seats in the next five-year period.

Commenting on the need for such an exercise, an official with the Union Health Ministry said, “The exercise has been planned to avoid the engineering-boom crisis in the country which sees lakhs of engineers, with poor skills and employability, being churned out from a large number of engineering colleges every year,” the official said.

Recently, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan had disclosed before the parliament that India’s doctor-patient ratio stood at 1:1,456, while WHO’s recommended ratio was 1:1,000. This means India is relatively close to meeting the desired figure.