Prime Highlights:
- The Union Cabinet approved Phase III of a scheme to expand medical education and healthcare across India, adding 5,000 PG seats and 5,023 MBBS seats.
- The scheme will introduce new specialties and ensure enough specialist doctors in rural and underserved areas.
Key Facts:
- India currently has 808 medical colleges with 1,23,700 MBBS seats, the highest in the world.
- The government is setting up 22 new AIIMS institutes under the PMSSY to provide specialized care and train skilled doctors.
Key Background:
The Union Cabinet, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved Phase III of a scheme to strengthen government medical colleges, postgraduate institutes, and hospitals across India. This stage will include 5,000 postgraduate (PG) places in addition to 5,023 undergraduate (MBBS) places to educate more physicians.
The scheme will also enhance medical education through the introduction of new specialties in government institutions. An increase in UG and PG will result in the availability of sufficient specialist physicians, particularly in rural and underserved communities. Officials said the plan will use existing facilities to expand healthcare efficiently and share resources fairly across regions.
The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare will issue detailed guidelines to implement the scheme, which is expected to finish by 2028-29. In India, there are 808 medical colleges and 1,23,700 MBBS seats, which are the highest in the world. In the last decade, the number of seats in MBBS and PG has increased by 69,352 and 43,041, respectively; still, there are not sufficient medical professionals in some regions.
Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) is also establishing 22 new AIIMS institutes to offer special care, besides training qualified doctors.
To ensure high quality of teaching, the Medical Institution (Qualifications of Faculty) Regulations 2025 currently take a competency-based approach to achieve the high demand for teachers.
Those experts believe that such measures will help the medical education system of India become stronger and enhance the healthcare of the 1.4 billion citizens of the country. The government is working towards having a robust healthcare system that will be able to satisfy the present and future needs by improving the number and quality of doctors.
This stage of the plan indicates that the government is busy enhancing the accessibility of health care, increasing the number of medical schools, and producing qualified practitioners to serve the citizens in different parts of India.
