The government MBBS seats jumped by 155% superseding private medical seats which grew by 97% between 2011-12 and 2021-22.
The Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine invasion has exposed long-standing issues facing medical education in the country. It also flagged the obsolete learning methods used by the medical colleges in India, besides the need for technical skills. The country’s medical shortage of doctors has become a major issue along with inadequate government seats and high fee structure to pursue medical education in private medical colleges in India.
As per a FICCI and KPMG report, titled ‘Strengthening healthcare workforce in India: the 2047 agenda’, there is a need to ramp up the efforts in augmenting education infrastructure and providing social safeguard benefits to promote healthcare as the preferred profession in the coming decades.
The report further points out India’s density of 33.5 health workers per 10,000 population as compared to the WHO recommendation of 44.5 skilled health workers per 10,000 persons. This suggests the gaps in demand and supply of healthcare workforce and healthcare education institutes.
Increase in the Number of Medical seats
The last decade saw an 83% growth in medical colleges in India and a 121% growth in UG seats. The number of medical seats at the UG level increased from 41,569 in 2011-12 to 91,927 in 2021-22, noted a data analysis report done by KPMG for the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) which was released recently.
There has been a 74% increase in PG seats since 2017. There are 46,118 postgraduate seats across 28,260 government medical colleges and 17,858 private colleges as per 2021-22 data.
The MBBS seats grew by 79% from 51,348 seats to 91,927 seats in top MBBS colleges in India as per Health Ministry data. The Postgraduate seats expanded from 31,185 before 2014 to 46,118 seats.
The government MBBS seats jumped by 155% superseding private medical seats which grew by 97% between 2011-12 and 2021-22.
The Government seats increased 2.5 times, with an average annual growth of 9.5%, compared to 5.6% for private medical seats from 2011-12 to 2021-22. The maximum increase was in Tamil Nadu (4,110 seats), Karnataka (3,004 seats), Maharashtra (2,775 seats), Gujarat (2,170 seats), Telangana (1,900 seats), and Bihar (1,525 seats) in terms of the addition of private MBBS seats between 2017-22.
Top Medical Colleges in India with NIRF Ranking 2022
National Institutional Ranking Framework is a method that the Indian government adopts to rank top educational institutions in India based on various parameters. It is under the Ministry of Education. Every year NIRF publishes ranking lists of top Institutions in India for different domains. NIRF is the most trustworthy and popular Ranking agency in India.
| NIRF Ranking 2022 | College Name | NIRF Score |
| 1 | All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi | 91.60 |
| 2 | Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research | 79.00 |
| 3 | Christian Medical College | 72.84 |
| 4 | National Institute of Mental Health & Neuro Sciences, Bangalore | 71.56 |
| 5 | Banaras Hindu University | 68.12 |
| 6 | Jawaharlal Institute of Post-Graduate Medical Education & Research | 67.64 |
| 7 | Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences | 67.18 |
| 8 | Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham | 66.49 |
| 9 | Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram | 65.17 |
| 10 | Kasturba Medical College, Manipal | 63.89 |
The Government aims to create 15,700 MBBS seats through Central Sponsored Schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana for the upgradation of existing central & state government colleges. It has initiated several schemes to improve medical education and increase the number of medical seats at the state level.
