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Health & Medicine
Mahesh

24/10/23 07:40 AM IST

The uneven spread of medical colleges

In News
  • A new regulation issued by the medical education regulator National Medical Commission (NMC) in August put a hold on new medical colleges and expansion of existing colleges in states with more than 100 medical education seats per million population.
Seats distribution
  • At least 13 states and UTs have more than 100 seats/ million population and are not eligible to increase capacity.
  • Tamil Nadu has the most seats (11,225), followed by Karnataka (11,020) and Maharashtra (10,295).
  • However, while TN and Karnataka have exceeded the NMC’s norm by 46% and 63% respectively, Maharashtra, with its estimated 12.6 crore population, is well below the threshold.
  • The deficiency of medical college seats in relation to population is the most acute in Meghalaya, Bihar, and Jharkhand, all of which are in deficits of more than 75% from the NMC’s recommended ratio.
  • Meghalaya has only 50 seats for an estimated 33.5 lakh people; these numbers for Bihar and Jharkhand are 2,565 and 12.7 crore, and 980 and 3.9 crore respectively. Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state, has 9,253 seats, a deficiency of 61%.
Merit in NMC guidelines
  • This move was necessary to ensure a good distribution of medical colleges across the country.
  • Places such as Puducherry, Mangalore, or Pune have several medical colleges but a state like Meghalaya has only one college.
  • Opening of more colleges in, say Bihar, could result in a reverse migration of staff from the southern states.
  • With an objective of providing the right teaching environment and improving the overall quality of education, the provision of limiting UG seats in each state to 100 per million populations has been included.
  • It is expected that this will reduce regional disparities in the availability of healthcare professionals and will go a long way in ensuring effective quality of education.
Source- Indian Express

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