Faced with huge shortage of doctors, the Centre plans to increase the number of medical colleges to have a total of 80,000 MBBS and 45,000 MD seats by 2021.
The Union Health Ministry shared its ambitious growth plans with the members of Parliament at a meeting of the consultative committee attached to the ministry. It received a thumbs up from members.
India currently has 41569 undergraduate (MBBS) seats and 22194 post graduate seats.
Even though there are 7.5 lakh registered doctors, only 5.5 lakh are in active practice.
Because of a serious shortage in the number of doctors, the doctor-patient ratio stands at 1: 2000 which the ministry plans to bring down to 1: 1000 by the end of 13th plan period.
Eying the 2021 target, the government approved 46 new medical colleges in the last three fiscals – 11 in 2009-10; 14 in 2010-11 and 21 in 2011-12. The trend is likely to continue as the government had modified the norms for setting up new medical colleges.
The data shared at the consultative committee meet shows that MBBS seats have gradually increased from 35,202 in 2009-10 to 41,569 in 2011-12. The PG seats have increased from 13,043 in 2008-09 to 22,194 in the current academic session, an increase of 9,151 seats.
The officials told the MPs at the consultative committee meeting on health that the proposed common tests, the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for Undergraduate and Postgraduate medical courses, had been notified for commencement from 2013-14.
“The common entrance tests for admission to MBBS and MD courses have been notified on February 25, this year for commencement from academic year 2013-14,” they said.
The NEET for admission to UG courses would be conducted by the CBSE and the NEET for PG courses would be carried out by the National Board of Examinations, the officials said.
On nursing education, Health Minister Azad also informed the MPs that in the last two years 132 Auxiliary Nurse and Midwife and 137 General Nurse and Midwife schools were set up to have an additional 20,000 nurses every year.
Six nursing colleges are being established at the six new AIIMS being set up in Bhubaneswar, Patna, Raipur, Jaipur, Bhopal and Dehradun, which will be functional by next year.
At the same time, a National Institute of Paramedical Sciences (NIPS) is also being set up at Delhi and 8 Regional Institutes of Paramedical Sciences are to come up at Chandigarh, Lucknow, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Bhubaneswar, Patna and Aurangabad.
