New Delhi: The National Medical Commission has introduced landmark amendments to the Undergraduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023, aimed at fundamentally restructuring the capacity of medical education in India. Through a gazette notification issued in late April 2026, the commission has permanently removed the restrictive 150-seat cap for MBBS courses per college. Previously, institutions were limited to a maximum intake of 150 students for the academic year, but the new regulations allow colleges to expand their capacity to 200 or 250 seats, provided they maintain the necessary infrastructure and faculty standards.
In a move that provides significant relief to states with high demand for medical professionals, the commission has also withdrawn the population-based seat ratio. The earlier mandate, which restricted the number of MBBS seats to 100 per 10 lakh population in a state or Union Territory, had often been a point of contention for southern states that had already achieved or exceeded these metrics. By deleting this clause, the regulatory body has shifted the focus from regional population quotas to the individual capacity and clinical facilities of the educational institutions themselves.
Operational logistics for setting up new medical colleges have also been simplified through revised distance norms between colleges and their affiliated teaching hospitals. The previous requirement, which dictated a maximum travel time of 30 minutes between the two facilities, has been replaced with a fixed distance of 10 kilometres. Recognizing the unique logistical hurdles in specific terrains, the commission has relaxed this limit to 15 kilometres for institutions located in North Eastern and Himalayan states. This change is expected to facilitate the establishment of colleges in urban clusters where land availability is a challenge.
These amendments, issued under the National Medical Commission Act, 2019, signal a shift toward a more liberalized medical education framework. By removing these regulatory bottlenecks, the government intends to encourage both public and private investment in healthcare infrastructure to meet the rising demand for doctors. While the changes provide a clear path for expansion, they place a heightened responsibility on the Medical Assessment and Rating Board to ensure that increased seat numbers do not compromise the quality of clinical training and academic standards.
