There are plans to upgrade seats at the government medical college in Akola as well, where post-graduate courses were started last year. The institution has four post-graduate seats. A proposal for the upgrade will be sent to the Union government later.
In some good news for the medicos who want to go in for specialisation and for boosting availability of trained medicos in the state's bare-bones public health system, the number of post-graduate seats in Maharashtra's government medical colleges might soon rise by around 100. The move is also expected to meet the shortage of doctors and help improve the quality of service in government hospitals.
"We are trying to upgrade the number of post-graduate seats in medical colleges," said Dr Pravin Shingare, director, Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER), adding that 11 of the 16 government medical colleges will see their seats being augmented by 10-20% across disciplines.
"The government of India and the state government have budgeted funds for this project," he said, adding that the government medical colleges in Mumbai, Pune, Solapur, Miraj, two colleges in Nagpur, Yavatmal, Auragabad, Nanded, Ambejogai and Latur will see the number of seats being increased. The project is expected to be completed by 2018.
There are plans to upgrade seats at the government medical college in Akola as well, where post-graduate courses were started last year. The institution has four post-graduate seats. A proposal for the upgrade will be sent to the Union government later.
Of the 16 government medical colleges, post-graduate courses are offered in 12 colleges – in all, there are 612 degree seats. This is in addition to 156 post-graduate diploma seats being offered in these institutions.
Shingare said the government of India had relaxed norms to allow professors to teach more students. "We will have to increase the number of beds for additional students, and more equipment must be brought in for them," he explained, adding that if they wanted to augment seats in departments such as anaesthesia and radiology, machines needed to be purchased.
"This will help increase the number of doctors in hospitals, which will improve services to patients and reduce the turnaround time. It will cut down the waiting list of patients seeking beds or surgeries in government medical colleges," said Shingare.
"Earlier, there were just around 12,000 PG seats in India. With the grants by the government of India, all states undertook a campaign to increase the number and gradually, in the last 10 years, we have touched about 20,000 (seats)," said Shingare, adding that this would help meritorious students.
Post graduate seats for 2016-17
Degree courses
Government: 612
BMC: 444
Central government institutions: 83
Total: 1,139
(In addition, 261 diploma seats are also offered in these institutions)
MBBS intake capacity
State government: 16 colleges, 2,300 seats
Municipal corporations: Five colleges, 610 seats
Central government: Two colleges, 240 seats
Unaided/private: 15 colleges, 1,770 seats
Minority unaided: One college, 100 seats
Deemed universities: 10 colleges, 1,675 seats
Total: 6,695 seats
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