NEW DELHI:
Around 2,500 MBBS seats are to be added to various medical colleges across the country, after an empowered committee of the health department approved the raise.
The committee, headed by Health Secretary Lov Verma, in its recently held meeting, approved raising the number of MBBS seats by around 2,500, and also starting new colleges at various hospitals, according to the minutes of the meeting released by Health Ministry said.
The new seats will come up at new and existing government colleges.
The decision comes in the wake of the number of undergraduate seats going down by 1,170 in 2014-15 after the Medical Council of India (MCI) rejected proposal of around 3,920 seats and approved only 2,750 seats.
The MCI’s decision had invited sharp critisism from the then Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and the new addition is likely to provide relief to aspiring MBBS students.
The committee approved 100 new seats each for G B Pant Hospital at Port Blair and district hospitals in Kohima, Almora, Churu, Dungarpur, Datia and Khandwa.
It also approved proposals to increase number of seats at existing medical colleges in Patiala and Amritsar in Punjab and Coimbatore, Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli and Madurai in Tamil Nadu. It also approved increase in existing seats in Haldwani, Bhopal, Gwalior, Rewa, Indore, Udaipur and Kota.
The empowered Committee chaired by Verma held its meeting on December 29 last year to consider proposals for establishment of new medical colleges attached with district and referral hospitals and strengthening/upgradation of existing state and central Government Medical Colleges to increase MBBS seats. (AGENCIES)
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