Chennai: A week after chief minister M K Stalin urged the Centre to reverse National Medical Commission’s regulations restricting opening of new medical colleges, the apex regulatory body for medical education has said its decision will “reduce regional disparities in the availability of healthcare professionals and go a long way in ensuring effective quality of education”.
In August, the commission notified that after the 2023-2024 academic year, the letter of permission for starting new medical colleges shall be issued only for an annual intake of 50/100/150 seats, provided that the medical college shall follow the ratio of 100 MBBS seats for 10 lakh population in that State / UT.
Stalin, in a letter to Narendra Modi, called this a direct encroachment on the rights of all states and penalisation of states which had invested more in public health infrastructure. Citing the Supreme Court judgment that held that executive instructions could not impose reasonable restrictions on the fundamental right to establish educational institutions under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution of India, Stalin said the notification is “legally untenable”.
The commission has justified its stand on two counts. First, various courts including the Madurai bench of the Madras high court had made observations on crowding of medical colleges. Second, its decision has been appreciated by various state branches of Indian Medical Association (IMA), students’ associations, and the medical community in general.
The commission said it had limited undergraduate seats in each state to 100 per million population. With this ratio, there will be potential for the addition of about 40,000 MBBS seats in the country if the medical colleges are evenly distributed, it said. IMA Tamil Nadu State branch state president Dr T Senthamil Pari said the state has a “doctor-patient ratio of 1:600 against the WHO recommended norm of 1:1,000”.
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Published On Oct 13, 2023 at 08:00 AM IST
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