After pushback from South, NMC defers plan to add MBBS colleges & seats according to population

New Delhi: After strong protests from southern states, the National Medical Commission (NMC) has put on hold its decision to set up more MBBS colleges and add more undergraduate seats on the basis of a state’s population.

In a notification issued in August, the regulator had said this would be implemented from the next academic session.

This dictated ratio of 100 seats for every 10 lakh population, however, would have restricted all five southern states from opening new medical colleges, since they already had the required number of seats. The decision particularly affected Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, which are aiming to open at least one medical college in each district.

In the revised public notice Wednesday, the regulator deferred its decision to 2025-26, adding that this was being done on the orders of the Union health Ministry. Incidentally, none of the southern states are ruled by the BJP.

The matter, the notice said, was examined by the commission’s Undergraduate Medical Education Board (UGMEB) following a letter from the ministry sent to it on 1 November before the decision was taken. The notice was signed by UGMEB chairperson Aruna V. Vanikar.

Vanikar told ThePrint that the August guidelines were widely applauded and supported by several associations, including the Indian Medical Association — the largest network of doctors in India.

“We had also held consultations prior to coming up with the notification. But we were given to understand  by the Ministry that there are some new medical colleges, including some government ones, which are coming up in Tamil Nadu and they kept writing to the Ministry asking for the reconsideration of the norm,” she told ThePrint.

“That’s why we are granting them an extension of a year before the norm linking MBBS seats with population in every state kicks in.”

ThePrint had earlier reported how the guidelines had evoked mixed reactions with a section of the medical fraternity hailing it, while others, including some politicians, particularly those from southern states, coming out in opposition.

Following the criticism, the NMC, in October this year, had issued a statement saying that the move was aimed at  reducing “regional disparities in availability of healthcare professionals”.

It clarified that the various courts had made observations on “crowding of medical colleges” over the last three years.

“Taking these (court orders) 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 undergraduate seats in each state to 100 per million population has been included in the recently notified MSR guidelines 2023,” NMC statement had said.

With this ratio there will still be potential for addition of about 40,000 MBBS seats in the country if the medical colleges are evenly distributed, the Commission had insisted.

But the latest episode is not the first time when the Commission has withdrawn or modified its directive following an intervention by the Ministry. In August this year, the regulator had put on hold  the professional conduct regulations for doctors mandating them to prescribe only generic drugs or face penalties.

This was after the Ministry asked the NMC to modify the Registered Medical Practitioner (Professional Conduct) Regulations, days after its release.

The government order to the NMC had followed a meeting between the IMA representatives and Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.

(Edited by Tikli Basu)

Also read: Why are 1,445 medical PG seats in India vacant after counselling? Govt forms panel to review reasons