Govt approves 10,000 new MBBS seats at a cost of 100 billion

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved the health ministry's proposal to increase the total number of MBBS seats in government medical colleges by 10,000. As present, government colleges in India have around 22,500 MBBS seats.

The addition of one MBBS seat comes at an approximate cost of Rs. 1.20 crore and the government will be spending a whooping Rs. 100 billion to offer 10,000 new MBBS seats to students. Out of this, an amount of Rs. 75 billion will be provided by the Centre and the rest Rs. 25 billion share will be provided by the State and Union territories.

This initiative is being undertaken by the Government of India to reduce the doctor to patient ratio from the current 1:2000 to having one doctor for every thousand patients. The Government also feels that by increasing the number of MBBS seats they will get more doctors to practice in remote areas and people in small places will also gain access to good medical treatment without having to travel far.

As per sources, this is the largest increase ever made in the number of MBBS seats on offer in the country. In the first week of January 2014, the government had approved another proposal made by the health ministry to upgrade district hospitals and set up 58 more medical colleges in various states.

As per Medical council of India (MCI), there are 381 medical colleges in the country offering close to 50,000 MBBS seats.