By 2021, P-G courses would be mandatory for all medical colleges

The government has approved amendments to the Post-Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2000 of the Medical Council of India (MCI) to increase the number of doctors.

The decision has been taken in the light of Health Minister JP Nadda's call to have 1,32,083 specialist doctors by the year 2020-21.

According to a senior Health Ministry official, the regulations will also apply to new medical colleges, besides dealing with existing private and government colleges.

All medical colleges would have to start P-G courses within three years of receiving recognition for running undergraduate courses and those failing to do so would lose their recognition, the official said, adding that the amendments and the new regulations would be notified soon.

"On the implementation of amendments, around 10,000 post-graduate seats would be created over the next four years," the official said.

There are over 450 medical colleges in the country, of which private players run about 300 colleges. Also, there is an urgent need for above one lakh MBBS seats.

In a bid to increase MBBS seats, the government has announced upgradation of 24 district hospitals into medical colleges that would add another 2,400 new seats.

According to a government report, "There has been an increase of 16,124 seats for undergraduates and 8,500 seats for postgraduates in just about four years as there were 52,000 undergraduate medical students and 30,000 postgraduate medical students before 2014-15."

As per government projections, by 2020-21, there would be 85,525 undergraduate medical seats and 46,558 postgraduate medical seats in the country.

Hailing the decision, former Indian Medical Association president KK Agrawal said, "The move is in the interest of patients. The government should have taken the decision much earlier."