The Union health ministry has mooted a proposal to amend the Medical Council of India (MCI) Regulation to make it mandatory for all the medical colleges both government and private in the country to compulsorily start post graduate medical courses from the academic year 2020-21.

According to the amendments to be made to the Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2000 of the MCI, all the existing medical colleges will have to mandatorily start post graduate courses. As per the information from the sources of MCI, even for those newly established colleges, they too will have to start the PG medical courses within 3 years of their recognition by the Medical Council of India.

The main objective behind this proposed amendment to the MCI Regulations is to enable medical colleges produce as many qualified doctors as possible, because by the next two to three years the scarcity of doctors in the country will reach alarming proportions.  “As the country has already a shortage of more than 6 lakhs doctors at present, it is the right time to take adequate steps to produce required physicians and specialist doctors. Otherwise, the healthcare sector will be in doldrums as there will be a huge gap between the demand and supply. Once the new amendment is implemented, then more than 10,000 new medical PG seats will be created, which will enable government to produce adequate specialised doctors to serve the country’s ailing population,” informed a senior official from Union health ministry.

If the new regulation comes into force, all those medical colleges offering only MBBS courses now should upgrade their infrastructure and faculty requirements to offer post graduate courses. If not, those institutions who fail to do so will lose their recognition.

The health ministry has already approved the proposed amendment for the MCI regulation and a formal notification to this effect is awaited to be released soon, informed the source.

Medical colleges will now have to apply for new seats to start the post graduate medical courses with the MCI. Based on which the MCI authorities will conduct an inspection and will give approval for increasing medical PG seats.