‘10,000 MBBS seats to be added in medical colleges in country by 2017’

JAIPUR: By 2017, 10,000 MBBS seats will be added in the medical colleges across the country, Union minister of state for health and family welfare Faggan Singh Kulaste said while addressing the second healthcare summit in the city on Friday.
The number of seats will be increased through the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET), he added.
He said that the Centre has identified 58 hospitals, which have at least 200-bed capacity, to be upgraded to medical colleges.Moreover, they will also complete the construction of approved All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) within deadline to meet the target of adding 10,000 MBBS seats in the country.
At present, there are about 50,000 MBBS seats in the country. But, the Centre is willing to increase the number of seats so that the problem of shortage of doctors in the country can be dealt with.
Recently, Union health minister J P Nadda had informed the Parliament that 58 hospitals will be upgraded to medical colleges, that will give rise to 5,800 additional MBBS seats, with each medical college having 100 seats.
In Rajasthan, seven hospitals will be ungraded to medical colleges in Alwar, Barmer, Bharatpur, Churu, Dungarpur, Bhilwara and Pali. The health department claimed that their construction would be completed soon and the session will begin from 2017.
Out of the 10,000 proposed MBBS seats, the state will get 700. That is, each new medical college will get 100 MBBS seats.
Currently, there are eight government medical colleges in the state. According to an estimation, by July 2017, the number of seats in medical colleges will have increased by at least 1,050. While the seven new medical colleges will add another 700 MBBS seats. Besides, around 350 MBBS seats are also proposed to be increased in the four existing medical colleges at Kota, Jhalawar, Ajmer and Bikaner.