Karnataka has most MBBS seats in country

BENGALURU: Karnataka has the highest number of medical colleges, and consequently, medical seats in the country at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Karnataka is home to 53 medical colleges, of which 18 are government colleges. The state has 7,355 MBBS seats and 3,646 postgraduate medical seats. Three more colleges with 150 seats each were added this year at Chamrajanagar, Kodagu and Karwar.

"We had the foresight to improve higher education 30 years ago and to make this possible we allowed private colleges to offer professional courses like medicine," said medical education minister Sharan Prakash Patil.

According to the health ministry , there are 57,138 MBBS seats in 422 colleges across the country . After Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh has the second highest num ber of MBBS seats (7,150), followed by Maharashtra (6,595) and Tamil Nadu (6,115). No other states have more than 5,000 MBBS seats.

AS Srikanth, chief executive of ComedK (a consortium of private medical, engineering and dental colleges in Karnataka) said a majority of the medical seats are in south India. Eleven states have 500 or fewer MBBS seats and five states have less than 150 seats. Seven states don't have a single private

medical college

.

KS Ravindranath, vicechancellor of Rajiv Gandhi University of Heath Sciences (RGUHS), said 30% to 40% of students pursuing medicine in Karnataka are from other states. The state government policy is to have medical colleges in each district hospital, a policy that the Centre is planning to adopt. "But some colleges lack good teaching, equipment and faculty," he pointed out.

Times View

The high number of medical colleges is an indicator of the fact that successive governments have taken steps to open medical colleges in the districts and put in place policies that ease the way for private institutions. But quantity does not always indicate quality, and that is definitely the case in Karnataka's medical colleges. Infrastructure needs to be improved in most colleges, and the shortage of qualified faculty has to be addressed.

Many colleges do not have the equipment, labs and other facilities to turn out qualified doctors who will save lives.

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