India’s commitment to meeting the targets of provisioning universal health care under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 2030) and also to realise the aspirations projected under the ‘Heal by India’ scheme, where the country provides a skilled health care workforce to meet global demands, is heavily dependent on our potential and capacity in medical education. This is in itself pillared on the twin requirements of ensuring accessible and affordable education in various streams of medicine.
As a pivotal step and
India’s commitment to meeting the targets of provisioning universal health care under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 2030) and also to realise the aspirations projected under the ‘Heal by India’ scheme, where the country provides a skilled health care workforce to meet global demands, is heavily dependent on our potential and capacity in medical education. This is in itself pillared on the twin requirements of ensuring accessible and affordable education in various streams of medicine.
As a pivotal step and a long-awaited reform, the National Medical Commission Act was enacted in 2019. The Act replaced the Medical Council of India (MCI) with an autonomous and transparent National Medical Commission (NMC) as the apex regulatory body for medical education. Restructuring of the medical licensing system, ranking of medical colleges and standardisation of entry requirements in medical colleges across the country have been envisaged in the Act. It has helped to lower education costs by regulating the fee structure in private institutions.
To meet the need for a large workforce, a higher number of seats are now offered. Till some years ago, there were only about 51,000 undergraduate (UG) MBBS seats. Notably, this has doubled to over 100,000 seats in 2023. Likewise, the number of medical colleges has increased to more than 700 in 2023 from less than 400 in 2015. There has been a 125% increase in postgraduate (PG) MD/MS and DNB seats – from about 31,000 seats in 2014 to more than 70,000 seats in 2023. The Government of India has also approved 157 new medical colleges in the public sector.
Of these, 108 are already functional while the remaining 49 colleges are at advanced stages of completion. The funding for each medical college has progressively increased from ₹189 crore to ₹325 crore. The states have largely benefitted by upgrading their medical education infrastructure with central funds. Concerted efforts have been made for multifold regional expansion with a focus on underserved areas. States such as Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal have been sanctioned 27, 23, 14 and 11 medical colleges respectively. Medical colleges have been established in Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Ladakh; 447 districts of the country now have at least one medical college. The regulatory structures have also been revamped to make medical education more affordable. The NMC has imposed the regulation of fees to cap tuition fees for 50% of MBBS and PG medical seats in private medical colleges and universities. The new Minimum Standards of Requirements for Postgraduate Courses (MSR) 2023 has relaxed the requirements for setting up a medical college in terms of the requirement of land needed, number of beds, departments and faculty positions.
The introduction of the Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate (FMGL) Regulations 2021 aims to make the medical education system more transparent, accountable and consistent. Physicians who have received their training in India or overseas will be required to take the NExT (National Exit Test) to be qualified to apply for a practising licence in India and be considered for merit seats in broader specialities. NMC has been conferred with the coveted World Federation for Medical Education (WFME) recognition status for a tenure of 10 years. This provides Indian students with an opportunity to pursue their career anywhere in the world, while also making India an attractive destination for international students. The District Residency Scheme requires second and third year PG students to complete a three-month training programme in district hospitals; they will be exposed to a variety of cases in the district health system thereby enriching their skills. This will also help to address the personnel crises in district hospitals.
To deal with the problems of ghost faculty and to gradually remove the assessor/human interface and have real-time data for monitoring medical colleges, the Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS) has been implemented across hospitals, whereas the Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) is being used in attached teaching hospitals. CCTVs installed in medical colleges provide video feeds in real-time.
The slew of reform measures has strengthened the medical education sector. India now stands at the threshold of leading the world in the provisioning of universal health care through its trained and skilled health care force.
Sudhansh Pant is secretary, Union ministry of health and family welfare. The views are personal
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