NMC may nix new medical colleges plan in Telangana

Fresh guidelines on establishing new medical colleges framed by the National Medical Commission (NMC), may end up impacting the efforts of Telangana Government to establish medical colleges in all the 33 districts. As a result, the eight new medical colleges, which are under construction in Telangana for 2024-25 and their NMC permission now hangs in balance.

The NMC guidelines for undergraduate courses under establishment of new medical institutions, starting new medical courses and increasing seats for existing courses and regulation-2023, says that it will only follow the ratio of 100 MBBS seats for every 10 lakh population in states and UTs, while



permitting new medical colleges.

As a result of these recent guidelines, all the south Indian states and even smaller states in the country will not be able to establish new medical colleges from next year. The regulations also cap the total number of MBBS seats for a medical college to 150 and medical colleges seeking additional MBBS seats cannot exceed 150 seats (for a year) from 2024-25.

Based on the new NMC guidelines, at present, Telangana with a total population of 3.84 crore should have maximum 3,809 medical seats. Overall, however, Telangana has 8515 medical seats out of which 3690 medical seats are in government medical colleges.