PMK slams State govt for not adding new medical seats

CHENNAI: Pointing out that Tamil Nadu has slipped to the third spot in terms of the number of medical seats in the country, PMK founder S Ramadoss alleged that it shows the State government's failure to add more seats.

It amounts to a betrayal of the people as the State can't add seats in the next year owing to new set of regulations, he added.

In a statement, the senior leader said that the State has slipped from the second position it held last year. "The slide is due to the failure in opening new medical colleges and increasing the number of seats in existing ones. In 2023-24, Tamil Nadu had 11,650 MBBS seats. After that, only 400 new seats were added. All the new seats were created by private colleges, not the State-funded ones. During the same period, Uttar Pradesh created 2,522 seats," he added.

Ramadoss recalled that there is a demand to increase the number of seats in the newly opened 11 medical colleges by 50 seats each. "If the government fulfilled the demand, the State could have been at the top of the list. From next year, new medical colleges cannot be opened and new seats cannot be added due to National Medical Commission (NMC) rules. By failing to increase the seats before the ban, the government has betrayed the people," he said.