The Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) has approved 157 government medical colleges in three phases, with 108 already operational, according to Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.

Pawar asserted that the government has increased the number of medical colleges and, as a result, the number of MBBS seats. According to government data, there has been an 82% increase in medical colleges from 387 prior to 2014 to 706 currently. Furthermore, the number of MBBS seats has increased by 112 percent, from 51,348 in 2014 to 1,08,848 on Dec 6.

The government is launching 58 government medical colleges in 20 states/UTs in the first phase, 24 colleges in eight states in the second phase, and 75 medical colleges in 18 states in the third phase.

This data comes just a few months after Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Mansukh Mandaviya claimed in October that the number of medical colleges in the country had doubled in the previous nine years. "In the last nine years, the number of medical colleges in the country has more than doubled." In India, 1,70,000 Health and Wellness Centres have been established. "We are also constructing one Critical Care unit in each district of the country," he said during a speech at NEIGRIHMS, Shillong.