The government will increase the number of medical seats in the coming two years,Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Ghulam Nabi Azad, announced.
At the foundation-stone laying ceremony of the silver jubilee auditorium, library and information centre of Devraj Urs Medical College, Kolar, he said: “At present, we have a total MBBS intake of 41,000 and 13,000 PG seats. We plan to raise the MBBS intake to 70,000 and PG seats to 35,000.”
He said the decision had been taken to address the problem of shortage of doctors. “There is a shortage of medical colleges in the country. Although we have adequate infrastructure to set up medical colleges, the lack of faculty poses a problem,” he said.
“It is to tackle this that we increased the faculty retirement age from 60 years to 70 years. This step has improved the situation and we hope we can slowly increase the number of medical colleges,” he added.
At the ceremony, chief minister DV Sadananda Gowda urged the Union government to allocate more funds to states to improve health services in rural areas.
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