With the Medical Council of India granting conditional approval for 100 MBBS seats in Tiruvannamalai Medical College, and an additional 85 seats in Madras Medical College, Tamil Nadu now has more MBBS seats than it has ever had in the past.
As many as 2,903 seats are now available for students who are hoping to give MBBS a shot this academic year.
The increase has come as a result of the 285 seats newly approved this year: 100 at Tiruvannamalai, an additional 85 seats at MMC and 100 extra seats at Stanley Medical College.
Notably, the MCI has appended every approval with a rider: in case of Stanley, it has said that the State has to fulfil certain requirements. While for MMC and Tiruvannamalai, the MCI has specified that approval has been granted subject to the State’s Chief Secretary providing an undertaking that the deficiencies would be rectified.
The increase in number of seats coming under the State quota is definitely good news for students. Unlike the engineering stream in Tamil Nadu, the number of MBBS seats is significantly lesser (5,055 seats in 40 medical colleges, 19 government and 21 private; as against 2.5 lakh seats in 535 engineering colleges), making it several times tougher to get an MBBS seat. Competition is intense, and sometimes, even 1 mark less in core subjects (physics, chemistry, biology) might cost a student an MBBS seat.
“All over the country, we need at least twice the number of MBBS seats than we currently have. Obviously it is better that these extra seats come in the government sector, as the middle class finds it really tough to pay for seats in private colleges,” explains Jayaprakash Gandhi, education consultant. The capitation fee is high, and so is the annual fees, he adds. “Only by raising the number of seats in the State quota can we push the cut-off mark down to reasonable levels. Today, a student might have to get 199-198 as cut-off to qualify for a State MBBS seat,” he explains.
This is how the math for the 2,903 seats works out: 1,556 seats in 16 government medical colleges (All India Quota); 509 seats in the three medical colleges with fresh allotment (All India Quota) and 838 seats surrendered by private self financing medical colleges into the State quota.
