Telangana’s health minister T Harish Rao on Monday said that the state has 19 medical seats per lakh population, the highest ratio in the country.

Karnataka, however, has the higher number of seats up for grabs at 9,545 followed by Maharashtra where 9,000 seats are available at medical colleges. A recent report by Stats of India portal has indicated that Telangana has 5,240 medical seats.  

Rao attributed it to the TRS (currently BRS) government’s consistent efforts to establish medical colleges in the state ever since the state was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014.

Drawing a comparison, he said that when united with the current Andhra Pradesh in 2014, Telangana had only 8.5 medical seats per lakh population. Besides, the state also has the second highest number of PG medical seats per lakh population.

“When Telangana was formed eight years ago, there were only five medical colleges. Now, there are 17. There were only 850 MBBS seats in government medical colleges before 2014. Now, the number has gone up to 2,890,” Harish Rao told the media.

Second in the list is another South Indian state, its neighboring Karnataka, which had 17.91 medical seats per lakh population, but with a higher seat number at 10,945. The percentage-to-seat difference could be attributed to a large difference in the population. While Karnataka’s population is around 6.5 crore, that of Telangana’s is 3.5 crore only. Tamil Nadu comes third on MBBS seats per lakh population, while Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, and UP rank fourth, sixth and seventh, respectively.

In PG medical seats, though, Karnataka leads with 9.06 per lakh population and 5,537 seats; Telangana follows with 7.22 PG medical seats per lakh population and 2,544 seats in all. He described Telangana’s numbers as staggering.

“Though the population of BJP-governed Gujarat is six crores, the state has only 6,450 MBBS seats. Another BJP-governed state, Uttar Pradesh, with 19 crore population has 9,153 MBBS seats. CM K Chandrasekhar Rao’s aim is to make Telangana a jewel of India in medical education,” Rao added.

The minister claimed that Telangana is the only state that plans a medical college in every district headquarter. “The CM inaugurated eight medical colleges in a single day in November. In a short span, we have added as many as 17 colleges. Seventeen more will be set up in a phased manner,” he said.

Officials said medical education is a priority for Telangana. “Government medical colleges were set up in tribal-dominated Mahabubabad district and in remote areas like Wanaparthy. In Bhupalpally assembly constituency, two medical colleges were established,” a senior official said.

Inputs from Times of India