TV
India’s medical education system is facing a deepening crisis with over 12.36 lakh students qualifying the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) UG 2025, but only 1.18 lakh MBBS seats are available nationwide to accommodate them.
This glaring mismatch has left more than 90 per cent of aspiring doctors at a dead end, unable to access medical training despite clearing one of the country’s toughest competitive exams.
According to data released by the National Testing Agency (NTA), more than 22 lakh students appeared for NEET this year. Although the success rate crossed the halfway mark, the availability of MBBS seats fall drastically short, raising serious questions about the structure and scalability of India’s medical education framework.
One Exam, Too Few Seats
The disparity between qualified candidates and actual seat availability has grown more visible over the past few years.
The National Medical Commission’s (NMC) updated undergraduate seat matrix for 2025-26 lists a total of 1,18,190 MBBS seats across 780 colleges, including both government and private institutions. These include premier names like AIIMS and JIPMER, as well as a vast network of state-run and privately managed colleges.
But with more than 12 lakh eligible candidates vying for just over a lakh seats, a significant majority will be turned away, many forced to consider expensive private options, alternate medical courses, or education abroad.
For a country struggling to improve its doctor-to-patient ratio, the inability to absorb its own qualified students is a worrying failure.
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The Inequity in State-Wise Distribution
While India’s total MBBS capacity has increased, its distribution remains alarmingly uneven. Some states dominate in seat availability while others barely register.
Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Telangana collectively hold nearly 45 percent of the total seats in the country; these five states alone offer over 53,000 MBBS slots.
In contrast, states like Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, and union territories such as Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Sikkim, and Dadra & Nagar Haveli offer fewer than 200 seats each.
In these regions, government infrastructure is minimal, and students often have no choice but to migrate or enroll in high-cost private colleges, if they can afford them.
Expansion Isn’t Solving the Problem Fast Enough
To its credit, the Indian government has made notable efforts to expand medical education over the past decade. In 2014, there were just over 51,000 MBBS seats across 387 medical colleges. That number has more than doubled to 1.18 lakh seats in 780 colleges as of the 2024–25 academic year.
Yet, despite the rapid growth, demand continues to soar at an even faster pace. The rise in qualifying candidates each year far outstrips the rate of seat creation.
Many states still don’t have a single government medical college, and the infrastructure struggles to catch up with rising aspirations.
