HYDERABAD: The sustained efforts of the Telangana government over the last year to increase the number of medical seats have paid off. With 6,040 medical seats, Telangana has secured the sixth position in the list of States with the most MBBS seats.
Revealing this, Health Minister T Harish Rao said that this is helping students from economically weaker sections to realise their dream of becoming a doctor. In a rare incident, a student with the rank of 8,78,200 has been allotted a medical seat in the State. What is noteworthy is that unlike any other States, Telangana has 19 MBBS seats per one lakh population. With the establishment of eight new medical colleges, 1,150 MBBS seats have been added. Moreover, reserving more than 85% of B category seats for local students and increasing reservation for ST students to 10% from 6% have helped accommodate more students.
Giving a detailed brief about this progress, Harish Rao said that the decisions taken by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao are keeping Telangana at the top in the country in terms of medical education. “Students had to go to distant countries like China, Ukraine, Russia, Philippines to pursue MBBS. However, not only parents are now getting relief from the financial burden but also the opportunities to pursue medicine within Telangana have increased,” he said.