NEW DELHI: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, on Thursday announced that it is set to become the first among the 23 IITs in the country to launch postgraduate medical education.
A total of 12 MD (Doctor of Medicine) seats, accredited by the National Medical Commission (NMC), will be offered from December 2026.
Two MD seats will be offered in each of the following six disciplines: General Medicine, Radiology, Physiology, Pathology, Community Medicine and Biochemistry.
An official release said, "In a landmark development for Indian higher education and healthcare, IIT Kharagpur, the country's first IIT, has achieved another historic first, becoming the first IIT in India to introduce postgraduate medical degree programmes accredited by the NMC." IIT Kharagpur was established in 1951.
Beginning with the academic session 2026-27, the programmes will be introduced after the ongoing counselling process.
A university representative told this reporter, "These programmes will be available for consideration in the second round of counselling. The counselling process for the academic year 2026-27 will take 1.5 months to conclude. So, by the end of December, we expect to commence the academic session with the first batch of MD students."
"This heralds the emergence of a new model of medical education in India, one that seeks to dissolve the traditional boundaries between medicine, engineering, artificial intelligence, biomedical science and translational research," the release added.
Professor Suman Chakraborty, Director of IIT Kharagpur, said in a statement, "Our vision is not simply to train specialist doctors, but to create an ecosystem where clinical excellence meets engineering ingenuity, artificial intelligence and translational research. We want our medical graduates to be not only outstanding clinicians, but also innovators capable of addressing some of humanity's most pressing healthcare challenges."
The institute will welcome its first batch at the Dr B C Roy Multi-Speciality Medical Research Centre. The centre will provide the institutional setting for a research-driven medical education ecosystem, with opportunities for interdisciplinary engagement across the institute's extensive technological and scientific capabilities.
IIT Kharagpur's strengths in microfluidics and bioengineering, healthcare diagnostics, artificial intelligence, computational sciences and translational medical technologies provide a distinctive foundation for this vision, the release added.