The Indian government recently unveiled a grand scheme to introduce 75,000 new medical seats in an attempt to expand India’s medical manpower. But with a 9.78% increase in its budget for medical care, no definite financial blueprint for opening 300 new medical colleges to make room for such an expansion is in consideration.

Between 2014 and 2024, medical seats in India have gone up 130% already. Before any expansion can even be considered, it is important to assess whether such a preceding expansion in medical seats has seen an improvement in medical care, faculty recruitment, and doctor salaries. In this article, three important concerns about such a policy change and its long-term consequence for India’s medical care sector will be discussed.

Can India Install 300 Medical Schools?

India currently has 766 medical colleges with 1.88 lakh MBBS seats in them. With 247 students in a college, 75,000 new seats will demand 300 new medical colleges to build.

Several critical factors must be considered when evaluating the feasibility of this expansion:

📌 Financial and Logistical Viability

  • The cost of establishing one medical college varies between ₹500-₹2,000 crores, depending on infrastructure, faculty, and hospital facilities.
  • Constructing 300 new colleges will demand a minimum of ₹1.5 lakh crore, a significant financial outlay.
  • With existing budget restrictions, how will the government access these funds?

📌 Urban and Rural Medical Education

  • Currently, 75% of medical professionals are urban-concentrated, taking care of only 30% of the population.
  • If the new medical schools have an urban bias, rural communities will suffer a continued shortage of medical professionals, compounding inequity in access to care.
  • Can at least 50% of such centers be placed in rural areas with proper infrastructure?

📌 Preventing Medical Admission Corruption

  • An increase in medical college admissions can actually promote heightened corruption in admissions.
  • Historically, private medical schools have been criticized for charging high, exploitative fees for a seat.
  • Without strict controls, will admissions purely on merit dominate?

The sheer scale of such expansion raises concerns about whether India can actually produce 300 new colleges in a matter of a short period of years or whether existing ones will have to take in more students, at the expense of compromising medical educational standards.

The Student-Faculty Ratio: A Looming Medical Education Emergency

The National Medical Commission (NMC) mandates a 1:5 faculty-to-student ratio for MBBS courses and a minimum of 1:3 for postgraduate courses.

📌 The Current Challenge

  • India’s current faculty-student ratio has declined to 1:10, falling short of global standards.
  • In contrast, the U.S. has a 1:3 proportion, and the U.K. has a 1:5 proportion, ensuring high educational quality.

📌 What Happens When 75,000 Additional Students Arrive?

  • Without substantial faculty recruitment, the ratio could drop even further to 1:17, significantly affecting medical education standards.
  • To maintain its current level of quality, India will need at least 20,000 new faculty members, but no sound recruitment and training scheme for such a large pool of instructors is in place.

📌 Potential Solutions

  • Fast-track faculty recruitment programs to maintain an ideal proportion.
  • Offer competitive salaries and incentives to attract experienced physicians to educational posts.
  • Enhance digital medical training with AI-powered educational tools and simulation training in an effort to bridge faculty gaps.

Without addressing faculty shortages, India will graduate poorly trained physicians, and in the long term, that will have a negative impact on patient care.

Equitable Doctor Distribution & Specialty in High-Care Healthcare

Increasing the doctor population alone will not address healthcare issues unless these physicians are well-trained in key specialties and fairly distributed across the country.

📌 The Mounting Toll of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs)
Non-communicable diseases account for 61.8% of deaths in India, including:

  • Cardiovascular diseases (Heart Attacks, Strokes)
  • Cancers
  • Chronic Respiratory Diseases (Asthma, COPD)
  • Diabetes & Hypertension

Yet, only 20% of postgraduate medical college admissions are for NCD-related specialties, and India’s ability to manage these emerging diseases effectively has been questioned.

📌 The Peril of Contagious Diseases

  • Tuberculosis (TB) alone takes 423,000 lives in India annually.
  • There is a dire lack of psychiatrists, with a mere 0.75 per 100,000 people, despite rising mental health issues.
  • Rural areas are desperately underprovided, with 75% of doctors catering to just 30% of the population.

📌 Suggested Actions

  • Increase postgraduate seats in key specialties such as Cardiology, Oncology, Endocrinology, and Mental Health.
  • Introduce mandatory rural service for new MBBS graduates to counteract doctor shortages in underserved areas.
  • Offer financial incentives, including salary increases and loan forgiveness, to attract physicians to high-priority specialties.

Conclusion: Expansion at Any Cost Carries Danger

While adding 75,000 medical seats is a bold move, its execution and long-term success remain uncertain.

Key issues that must be addressed:


✅ How will 300 new medical colleges be developed?
✅ How will faculty shortages be managed to maintain educational quality?
✅ How will newly trained doctors be distributed between urban and rural regions?
✅ Is there a plan to expand postgraduate seats in critical specialties?

Without a proper planning mechanism for infrastructure, faculty recruitment, and specialization gaps, India runs the risk of producing a surplus of inadequately trained physicians rather than addressing its deep-rooted healthcare challenges. The government must ensure that medical seat expansion is balanced with investments in high-quality medical training, faculty development, and workforce planning in order to build a strong and sustainable healthcare system for the future.

Dr. Prahlada N.B
MBBS (JJMMC), MS (PGIMER, Chandigarh). 
MBA in Healthcare & Hospital Management (BITS, Pilani), 
Postgraduate Certificate in Technology Leadership and Innovation (MIT, USA)
Executive Programme in Strategic Management (IIM, Lucknow)
Senior Management Programme in Healthcare Management (IIM, Kozhikode)
Advanced Certificate in AI for Digital Health and Imaging Program (IISc, Bengaluru). 

Senior Professor and former Head, 
Department of ENT-Head & Neck Surgery, Skull Base Surgery, Cochlear Implant Surgery. 
Basaveshwara Medical College & Hospital, Chitradurga, Karnataka, India. 

My Vision: I don’t want to be a genius.  I want to be a person with a bundle of experience. 

My Mission: Help others achieve their life’s objectives in my presence or absence!

My Values:  Creating value for others. 

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