New central rules to bar TN from adding more medical colleges, seats

A couple of new decisions taken by the undergraduate medical board of the National Medical Commission will effectively bar Tamil Nadu from building more medical colleges, either government or private, or adding more seats. Coming as they do amid protests against the NEET exam for medical college admissions, the rules are bound to worsen the conflict between the state government and the Union government over medical education.

The latest decisions have been published in the Gazette of India on August 16, under the “Guidelines for undergraduate courses under the establishment of new medical institutions, starting of new medical courses, and increase of seats for existing course and assessment and rating regulation 2023”. They are bound to make medical admissions even more difficult than what they already are.

First, the Commission has barred medical colleges from adding more than 150 MBBS seats in the existing colleges. “Applications for establishing new undergraduate medical education colleges shall be allowed only for 50/100/150 seats,” says the notification. “Colleges seeking increased number of seats cannot exceed a total of 150 MBBS students from the year 2024-25,” it adds.

The commission has, however, stated that colleges that applied for increased seats for the academic year 2023-24 can ask for the same number (200 or 250) as it was in their previous application only for one time next year.

The math

The other decision is not to allow medical colleges to have more than 100 MBBS seats per 10 lakh population in the state. Tamil Nadu has a population of over 8 crore, which effectively means it is allowed to have 8,000 seats. But it already has more than 10,000 seats in some 70-odd medical colleges, which means about 143 seats per college.

Media reports quoted doctors as saying that the decision was taken to ensure even distribution of medical education resources and doctors across the country. Tamil Nadu reportedly already has one doctor per 600 population though the recommended ratio is one per 1,000 population.

However, the state government is of the opinion that since the country needs more doctors there is no reason why Tamil Nadu cannot act as a medical hub since it has the required facilities. 

Also, Tamil Nadu has been carving new districts out of existing ones for administrative purposes, and aims to have at least one government hospital in a district. Hence, the capping of number of colleges and seats is viewed as detrimental to that.