Hyderabad: With the results for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for undergraduate courses (NEET UG) now declared, students across Telangana are eagerly awaiting the commencement of the counselling process. This is the first time that all the seats from the convener quota will be given to students from Telangana, as last year, only the candidates who had moved the Supreme Court had received the benefit of the locality.
According to the Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS), there are about 8,815 MBBS seats available across 35 government and 26 private medical colleges in the state. “There are about 4,215 MBBS seats in government colleges and 4,600 seats in private colleges,” said Dr Nanda Kumar, Vice Chancellor of KNRUHS.
As per the university website, there are 3,578 seats available in the convener quota in government colleges and 637 for the All India Quota.
Dr Kumar added that counselling dates will be announced as per the directives of the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC). When asked about the assimilation of new seats announced by the central government in the budget this year, Dr Kumar said the intimation has not been given by the NMC yet.
As per the National Medical Commission (NMC), nine new medical colleges were established in 2024 — eight government and one private. These institutions admitted their first batches last year.
Despite the increase in student intake, faculty strength remains critically low.
For example, the Government Medical College in Kumaram Bheem has only four permanent faculty members. Although advertisements are being issued for contract positions, they remain unfilled. No new government notifications for permanent faculty recruitment have been released since June 2023 — an issue all doctor associations, such as Telangana Government Doctors Association (TGGDA), Telangana Teaching Government Doctors Association (TTGDA) and Junior Doctors Association (JUDA) have been requesting to be addressed for a long time.
From about 50,000 practising doctors in the state, only 4,500 are available as faculty members, including both permanent and contract teachers across medical colleges in the state. The state is grappling with at least 50% vacancies. Even the promotions to important posts such as the additional director of Medical Education have been pending for more than a year now.
Concerns over inadequate infrastructure in government medical colleges persist. These issues were also highlighted recently when the medical superintendent of the area hospital at Zaheerabad was suspended, despite systemic challenges that continue to hinder college administration and functionality.
