Chennai: There will be no new govt colleges, but the state has applied for 150 additional undergraduate medical seats in three state-run colleges, a health department official said here on Wednesday.The directorate of medical education, which administers state-run medical colleges, applied for an increase of 50 MBBS seats each in Namakkal, Tiruvallur and Tirupur govt medical colleges. If the National Medical Commission gives the nod, state will add these seats to the seat matrix for upcoming academic year. In 2025, Tamil Nadu had 5,200 MBBS seats in govt medical colleges and an additional 50 seats in AIIMS Madurai.
“We have space to add seats in Ramanathapuram too, but it is on hold because AIIMS Madurai students are using the campus,” a senior official said. Classes for nearly 200 medicos—four batches of 50 each—who joined AIIMS Madurai are being held at the govt Ramanathapuram medical college and hospital, as the construction of AIIMS in Thoppur is still underway.These additional seats are expected to ease competition during the admission process, experts say. “It is good to have more seats in govt medical colleges as the fee is affordable and their hospitals have a good footfall,” said R Narasimhan, who coaches students for NEET.
