The Medical Council of India’s Board of Governors has approved increasing post graduate medical seats for MD and MS programmes by more than 4,800 to 36,192 for the next academic session, a top official said on Monday. BoG Chairman and Niti Aayog member V K Paul said the increase is more than the total number of additional seats created in the past five years.

“The Prime Minister Narendra Modi government in 2014 had promised to double PG and UG medical seats by 2024. So, in that direction, the Board of Governors-vested with power of the Medical Council of India has given its approval to increase post graduate medical seats (broad specialty) in 2020-21 session by 4,807. So, as a result, in the new academic session counselling, 36,192 PG medical seats (MD/MS, broad specialty) will be available,” Paul said.

“In 2020-21 academic session, approximately 44,000 post graduate medical seats (36,192 MD/MS seats and 8,000 DNB/FNB seats) will be available for 54,000 undergraduate MBBS pass outs,” he added.

MS is the post graduate degree in general surgery, while MD is the post graduate degree in general medicine. In 2014-15, there were over 23,000 PG medical seats in both government and private medical colleges across the country.

Paul said the Niti Aayog is working with the Ministry of Health to encourage large hospitals to offer resident doctors Diplomate or Fellow of National Board (DNB/FNB) courses under the National Board of Examination.

Recently, to address the shortage of qualified doctors and bridge gaps in medical education, the Niti Aayog had come out with the public-private partnership (PPP) model to link new or existing private medical colleges with functional district hospitals to augment medical seats.

In its draft ‘Model Concession Agreement for Setting Up Medical Colleges Under the Public Private Partnership’ guideline document, the Aayog had said a scheme to link new and/or existing private medical colleges with functional district hospitals through PPP would augment medical seats and also rationalise the costs of medical education. Under the new district residency programme, planned by the Board of Governors, every post graduate medical student will need to serve at a district hospital for three months in order to be eligible to get their degrees.

Also read: Health Ministry plans to reduce fees for medical courses

Source: PTI