In a move that will eventually reduce shortage of doctors in the country, the Medical Council of India (MCI) has decided to relax norms for setting up of medical colleges. The earlier land requirement of 25 acres to set up a medical college has been brought down to 20 acres across the country.

The MCI, considering unavailability of land in metropolitan cities, has decided that colleges may have multi-storey buildings with the required floor area as per norms. In such cases, it has been decided to cut down the land requirement from 20 acres to 10 acres. It has also been decided that Northeastern states, UTs of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu and any two parts of land separated by a distance not exceeding 10 km will be allowed to have medical colleges.

The bed strength and bed occupancy required at the inception stage has been rationalised for medical colleges having 50 to 100 seats in Northeastern and the hill states. The bed strength would initially be 200 which will gradually be increased to 400.

“There are enough medical colleges in the South, but hardly any in the hilly regions of the North due to non-availability of 25 acres of land together. The relaxation would help the Northeast and other regions where land availability is a problem,” said MCI president Dr Ketan Desai.

At present, there are 289 medical colleges in India, most of them either in south or west India.

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