NEW DELHI, Dec 12:
A Parliamentary committee has expressed concern over the uneven distribution of medical seats across the country and the huge cost of medical education “as if there are no takers for the poor guardian to get their off-springs admitted in the medical colleges”.
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Flagging the seat distribution issue, the department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare in the 167th report presented to Rajya Sabha on December 11 stated that while some states have a high concentration of medical seats, some are severely lacking against the national average of 75 MBBS seats per million population.
It suggested the government open up new medical colleges to provide quality medical education in Delhi so that students from the national capital do not have to travel to other states or even other countries to pursue medical education.
Not accepting the Action Taken by government on the its recommendations/observations contained in the 157th Report on “Quality of Medical Education in India”, the panel strongly recommended that the NMC must come forward with guidelines for establishing new medical colleges in states where there are fewer than hundred MBBS seats per million population.
It observed that Karnataka, Telangana and Tamil Nadu have approximately 150 MBBS seats per million and Puducherry has close to 2,000 or even more MBBS seats for a population of just about one million.
While some other states have less than 50 seats per million population, Bihar has only 21 seats per million, it stated in the report.
“The committee further suggests that the government may consider to plan to open new medical colleges to provide quality medical education in Delhi so that students from Delhi have not to travel to other states or even other countries to pursue medical education,” the report said.
The Committee appreciated the UG-MSR 2023 guidelines regarding setting up of new medical colleges providing approval for annual intake capacity of 50/100/150 MBBS seats.
Notwithstanding the same, it stated that as per the guidelines, given that the infrastructure and faculty position required are in place, a college, whether old or new, may be considered for granting permission to increase the undergraduate MBBS seats up to a maximum of 250 in a phased manner.
It further recommended that adequate attention must be given for opening of medical colleges in underserved districts which can be encouraged to use the locally available government medical colleges and hospitals for imparting healthcare services. (PTI)
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