Bangalore: The academic year 2010-11, is going to witness tremendous increase in the number of medical seats. Union Minister for Law and Justice M. Veerappa Moily has made the announcement that medical seats in the country are expected to shoot by 3,845 beginning September 2010. While delivering a convocation address on March 29, 2010, at the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), the minister has made the announcement.
In addition, change in the teacher student ratio alone from 1:1 earlier to 1:2 now would alone result in an additional space of 2,800 medical PG seats. With a view to increase the number of postgraduate medical seats, this had been coupled with other initiatives taken by the government. Total number of postgraduate seats in the country is estimated to be around 13,500.
Mr Moily said that centrally sponsored scheme for strengthening and upgrading the state government-run medical colleges under which financial assistance was provided for upgrading the facilities for starting PG courses, increase in number of PG seats and starting PG courses in new disciplines was introduced by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. He added that it is for this purpose, that the plan provision of Rs1, 350 crore had been made for the purpose.
Further, he also added that with the implementation of the scheme, it is expected that approximately 4,000 more postgraduate seats would be available, which will lead to an increase in the availability of postgraduate medical seats to about 23,000 over a period of 2 or 3 years. Mr. Moily said that India produced 34,000 MBBS graduates and 13,500 postgraduates every year, but churning out only 1,000 super specialists every year.
