According to National Medical Commission's Chairman Dr Abhijat Sheth, the number of undergraduate and postgraduate medical seats in the country is likely to increase by approximately 8,000 this academic year, and an assessment of medical colleges is already ongoing.

This development comes amid concerns that the number of medical seats will decrease this year after the Central Bureau of Investigation busted a network of Union Health Ministry officials, National Medical Commission (NMC) intermediaries, and representatives of private medical colleges accused of a slew of "egregious" acts. 

They were charged with corruption and criminal manipulation of the regulatory framework governing medical institutions in July of this year.

When the CBI investigation began, the NMC suspended the process of raising the number of seats or commencing new courses.

The agency had listed 34 people in an FIR, including eight health ministry officials, a National Health Authority official, and five doctors from the NMC inspection team.

In an interview with PTI, Dr Sheth said, "Along with my appointment, the president of the Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB) also has been appointed. We have taken up completion of inspection of UG medical seats on a priority basis and the assessments are under progress."

"We expect an increase of roughly around 8,000 seats (UG and PG seats combined) based on the number of applications we have received in this academic year," he added.

Currently, there are 1,18,098 UG seats, with 59,782 in government and 58,316 in private. The total number of PG seats is 53,960, with 30,029 in government and 23,931 in private.