The State government has decided to file its objections to recent guidelines of the National Medical Commission (NMC) fixing the number of medical seats in a State in proportion to its population. The NMC has fixed a ratio of 100 undergraduate medical seats to the population of every million.
If the new guidelines were to come into force, it would be a long time before the State could open any new medical college — government or private. Given that the State’s population is estimated to be 6.73 crore, it can have 6,700 undergraduate medical seats as per these norms. However, the State already has 11,745 medical seats.
This will essentially mean a freeze on the addition of new medical seats in most south Indian States, even as many north Indian States — where the ratio of medical seats to population is far lower than what has been prescribed — will get to add most of the new medical colleges in the near future. Apart from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu has also voiced its objections to the new guidelines.
