National Medical Commission approves 9,263 medical seats for Karnataka this year

Bengaluru: The National Medical Commission (NMC) has not approved the enhancement of seats for the medical colleges in Karnataka, despite the institutions providing an undertaking to fulfil the deficiencies highlighted by the commission.

As per the final seat matrix received by the Medical Education department, 9,263 seats (including Management and NRI) were allotted for the current academic year. The number of seats allotted to the state last year was 9,282. 

According to the sources from the department, NMC has not permitted fresh admissions at Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Belagavi, which is a Deemed-to-be-institution and the few seats filled at that college will not be available this year. “The number of seats shared by that particular institute were not more than 15,” said the source.

Going by the recommendation of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), the number of seats at medical colleges was supposed to go up by 1,500. “NMC has not considered the enhancement of seats recommended by the university following the shortage of teaching staff at the medical colleges in the state,” the official said.

Following the report submitted by the local inspection committees, RGUHS had recommended an increase in intake at eight private and 16 government medical colleges in the state. Along with that university had also given approval for one private medical college in Hunsur and two new government colleges at Ramanagara and Kanakapura, which the NMC has not approved.

This decision by the RGUHS was criticised by the experts as the university had recommended such a huge number of seats for the first time, despite the deficiencies.