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New Delhi: The central government, which is facing criticism over the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) scam, is planning to increase the number of undergraduate (UG) medical seats by 3,000 for the upcoming academic session (2024-25), taking the total number of seats to over 115,000.
This year, the exam for admission to medical schools, known as NEET, has been hit by a question paper leak scandal.
The plan, approved by the National Medical Commission (NMC), India’s apex medical education regulator, also includes approval to set up 28 new private medical colleges. The undergraduate session 2024-25 will begin in September.
Last year, the Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB) of NMC invited online applications for undergraduate and postgraduate courses, for which 1,845 applications were received. Of these, 113 were for setting up a new medical college, 58 for increasing seats in existing medical institutes, 1,010 for starting new postgraduate courses and 665 for increasing more seats in existing postgraduate courses.
“MARB is dealing with the application evaluation process, and the results are still in. The board is dealing with the first appeal to the NMC and will be followed by the second appeal to the health ministry. However, overall, around 3,000 more undergraduate seats will be added in this academic session,” said an official aware of the matter, adding that the number of UG seats may increase further once the review of the appeal process is over.
‘NMC approval awaited’
“The NMC has not approved all the applications for new colleges, otherwise the number of seats would have been more than 10,000. It filters and monitors the applications very closely and hence the commission has approved about 25% of the 113 new medical colleges out of the applications received,” the official said.
After investigation, all the deficiencies were reported to the medical colleges for rectification.
“The respective applications for setting up of new medical college/institute were physically inspected by a random evaluator to maintain transparency and avoid selection bias (same state, college, etc). Further, a confidentiality undertaking was signed by each expert before the review process,” the second official said.
The official said, “Overcoming the hurdles of skilled manpower, technical constraints, etc., the entire process was documented, processed in e-office with digital signatures and put under CCTV surveillance to prevent fraudulent activities. Thus, the entire application process for AY-2024-25 became transparent and confidential, smooth functioning, adhering to NMC timelines and applicable rules and regulations.”
On July 30, Union Minister of State for Health Anupriya Singh Patel said the government has increased the number of medical colleges and subsequently increased MBBS seats.
Patel said, “The number of medical colleges has increased by 88% from 387 before 2014 to 731 till now. Also, MBBS seats have increased by 118% from 51,348 before 2014 to 1,12,112 till now. PG seats have also increased by 133% from 31,185 before 2014 to 72,627 till now.”
Queries sent to the Health Ministry spokesperson could not be answered till press time.
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