Baishali Mukherjee

Eight new medical colleges of Bihar located in Saran, Begusarai, Bhagalpur, Buxar, Madhubani, Sitamarhi, Siwan, and Jamui are expected to start operating in the next two to three years. However, if things go according to plan the Samastipur Medical College will start its first academic session next year. With these nine new colleges, Bihar now has 20 medical colleges. Notably, since 2014, 157 District hospitals have been converted to medical colleges out of which 8 are in Bihar located at Purnia, Saran, Samastipur, Jhajharpur, Siwan, Buxar, and Jamui. Moreover, the Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH), Bihar’s oldest and first fully state government-run medical college,  is being redeveloped into Asia’s second-largest hospital. On September 3,  in its 99th year of existence PMCH got the nod for commencement of medical superspeciality courses in nephrology and neurology.

The Uttar Pradesh government also has plans to introduce the ‘One District, One Medical College’ project this year. It is also pertinent to note here that in 2024, 17 new medical colleges have been established in Uttar Pradesh.

Moreover, 800 new government medical seats have been sanctioned in Maharashtra this year. Also, the Central Health and Family Welfare Ministry has given the green signal to 8 new medical colleges in the state taking the number of medical colleges in the state to 41 and the number of medical seats to 5850. The new colleges will be located in Gadchiroli, Amravati, Washim, Jalna, Buldhana, Ambarnath, Bhandara, and Hingoli, and each college will have 100 MBBS seats.15 percent of these seats are reserved for the all-India quota admission conducted by the central Medical Counseling Committee and the rest will be added to the state’s counseling process. The state has allocated rupees 403 crore for each of the eight colleges.

In August, Maharashtra had received approval for two medical colleges with 50 MBBS seats each in Mumbai and Nashik before the admission season started this year. In October, eight more medical colleges in Amravati, Washim, Jalna, Buldhana, Hingoli, and Bhandara received approval from the Central government. Also, with three new medical colleges MBBS seats in Madhya Pradesh have gone up to 300.

As of now, as per government statistics, there are altogether 1,12,112 MBBS and 72,627 postgraduate (PG) medical seats available in the medical institutes of India. The number of medical colleges increased by 88% – from 387 medical colleges before 2014 to 731 currently operating in the country. As per the MoS Health, the MBBS seats have also increased by 118% from 2014 while the PG seats have increased by 133% since 2014. 

Source: PTI

Also read: Government to fund hospitals converted into medical colleges