Steps Taken to Strengthen Medical Education Infrastructure in the Country
The Government of India has significantly expanded medical education infrastructure, resulting in substantial increases across all metrics. The number of medical colleges has increased by 118.6%, from 387 before 2014 to 846 currently. MBBS seats have grown by 172.4% from 51,348 to 1,39,864, while PG medical seats have increased by 176.9% from 31,185 to 86,360.
Multiple centrally sponsored schemes have been implemented to achieve this expansion. The scheme for establishing new medical colleges by upgrading district/referral hospitals has approved 157 new medical colleges. Another scheme for strengthening existing government medical colleges has supported an increase of 4,977 MBBS seats in 83 colleges with approved funding of ₹5,972.20 crore, along with 4,058 PG seats in Phase-I across 72 colleges (₹1,498.43 crore) and 4,000 PG seats in Phase-II across 65 colleges (₹4,478.25 crore).
The Cabinet has approved Phase-III of the scheme to facilitate an additional 5,000 PG seats with enhanced cost ceiling of ₹1.5 crore per seat and extension of the UG scheme for 5,023 MBBS seats also at ₹1.5 crore per seat, with implementation timeline set for 2028-2029.
Under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana's Super Specialty Blocks component, 75 projects have been approved with 71 completed. Additionally, the Central Sector Scheme for new AIIMS has approved 22 institutions, with undergraduate courses already started in 19 of them.