Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in the Union Budget 2025, announced the addition of 10,000 new medical seats across medical colleges and hospitals in the coming year. This is part of a broader plan to increase India’s medical education capacity by 75,000 seats over the next five years. This follows the addition of nearly 1.1 lakh undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) medical seats in the past decade, marking a 130% increase in medical education availability.
Current Doctor-Population Ratio and Regional Disparities
As of July 2024, India has approximately 13.86 lakh registered allopathic doctors, along with 5.65 lakh AYUSH doctors, government data suggests.Minister of State for Health, Anupriya Patel, reported that India’s doctor-population ratio stands at 1:836, which is better than the World Health Organization’s recommended ratio of 1:1,000. While this suggests progress, the distribution of doctors remains uneven across the country.
A 2018 report, published by the National Medical Journal of India, highlighted that although India has the highest number of medical colleges globally, the density of physicians in rural areas is just 3 per 10,000 people, compared to 13 per 10,000 in urban areas. Despite the establishment of 286 new medical colleges since 2000, only 45.5% of them have been located in rural districts, leaving many regions underserved. States such as Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, and Arunachal Pradesh lack medical colleges in rural districts, and even states with predominantly rural populations like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh have a low percentage of rural districts with medical colleges. These disparities contribute to a significant rural-urban imbalance in India’s healthcare system.
Impact of Expanding Medical Seats
The government’s plan to add 10,000 new medical seats is a positive step toward alleviating the doctor shortage. Increasing the number of medical seats will help train more doctors to meet the growing demand for healthcare services. However, adding seats alone may not be enough. Many medical colleges are concentrated in urban areas, and ensuring the effective distribution of newly trained doctors to rural regions remains a major challenge.
Additionally, the quality of medical education needs attention, as some regions face infrastructure and faculty shortages. To ensure this initiative has lasting impact, improvements in healthcare facilities, faculty availability, and regional healthcare infrastructure must accompany the expansion of medical seats.
Addressing Doctor Retention in Rural Areas
Equally crucial is addressing the retention of doctors, particularly in rural and remote areas. To prevent new doctors from moving to urban centers, the government must focus on improving working conditions, salaries, and career growth opportunities in underserved regions. According to the Rural Health Statistics Report 2021-22, there is a severe shortage of specialist doctors at Community Health Centers (CHCs), with nearly 80% of required specialists—including surgeons (83.2%), obstetricians and gynecologists (74.2%), physicians (79.1%), and pediatricians (81.6%)—unavailable. Moreover, there is a significant shortage of female health workers and auxiliary nursing midwives, with up to 14.4% of posts vacant in Primary Health Centers (PHCs) and sub-centers.
The shortage of specialists, compounded by inadequate infrastructure and resources, makes it difficult to attract and retain doctors in rural areas. To address these challenges, it is vital to create incentives that encourage doctors to stay in underserved regions, ensuring that rural populations receive the care they need.
The Path Forward
While the addition of 10,000 medical seats is a significant step in expanding India’s healthcare workforce, comprehensive reforms are needed to ensure a well-distributed and well-trained medical workforce. These reforms should focus on infrastructure, faculty development, and doctor retention to effectively tackle the ongoing doctor shortage and ensure equitable healthcare access across the country.