Tamil Nadu has lost its position as the state with the maximum number of medical colleges or undergraduate medical seats. The health department has failed to add new medical colleges or increase seats in existing medical colleges in the past two years.
The Centre increased the number of MBBS seats from 108,940 in 2023-24 to 118,137 in 2024-25, said Union minister of state for health and family welfare Anupriya Patel in response to a question raised by Nagapattinam MP V. Selvaraj in Parliament. The approved 1.18 lakh seats comprise 60,422 seats in govt medical colleges and 57,715 seats in private medical colleges.
Karnataka has 12,545 medical seats, followed by 12,425 seats in Uttar Pradesh and 12,050 seats in Tamil Nadu. Maharashtra has 11,845 seats. All other states have fewer than 10,000 seats. Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland have 100 MBBS seats each.
The National Medical Commission (NMC) granted permission to 780 medical colleges in the country. Uttar Pradesh has 86 medical colleges, the highest number in the country, followed by Maharashtra (80) and Tamil Nadu (77). Karnataka has 73 medical colleges, and Telangana has 65. Andaman and Nicobar, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Dadra Nagar Haveli, Goa, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Sikkim have one medical college each.
The Centre provides financial and technical support to states and UTs to strengthen healthcare systems based on requirements posted by them in the programme implementation plans within their overall resource envelope. The NMC, while issuing a letter of permission to start a medical college, ensures the availability of faculty and other staff, as per their norms through physical assessment of the college.
Of the 76 medical colleges in the state, the health department runs 36. Since the establishment of eleven new colleges in 2021, no new govt colleges were started in TN.
Health minister Ma Subramanian said the state had sought funds from the Centre to start new colleges in six districts. “It is the policy of the state to start at least one medical college in every district. We make a request every time we meet the Union health minister. Our district collectors have also been asked to look for land parcels,” he said. However, for nearly three years, there have been no additional seats in the govt medical colleges.
Director of Medical Education Dr J Sangumani had earlier told TOI that the state health department had sought NMC’s approval to increase 50 undergraduate seats in each of the 11 medical colleges started in 2021. If this happened, Tamil Nadu would increase its seats in 36 govt medical colleges by 550 MBBS seats to 5,600 for admissions in 2025-26, he said.
