Medical aspirants seeking postgraduate admissions will have more options this year, as the National Medical Commission (NMC) has approved an additional 171 PG seats across various medical colleges for the 2025-26 academic year. The NMC has directed counseling authorities to include these seats in the upcoming counseling process without waiting for formal Letters of Permission (LoPs) from individual institutions.
These 171 additional seats span key clinical and diagnostic specialties, offering students a wider range of choices. The specialties include general medicine, general surgery, anaesthesiology, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, radiology, dermatology, emergency medicine, psychiatry, orthopaedics, respiratory medicine, and pathology.
The decision to increase the number of PG seats came after medical colleges appealed against earlier decisions made by the Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB). These appeals were examined by the First Appeal Committee, which then sanctioned the additional seats.
The NMC has clarified that the list of approved seats uploaded on its website will serve as the valid document for counseling purposes, ensuring that eligible PG seats are not lost due to administrative delays. Formal LoPs for the newly sanctioned seats will be issued shortly.
This move by the NMC is aimed at maximizing seat utilization while maintaining regulatory oversight through the appeal mechanism. The additional seats have been granted to colleges across multiple states, including Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Odisha, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, and Haryana.
In a notice issued on December 31, 2025, the NMC's MARB stated that postgraduate seats granted by the First Appeal Committee for the 2025-26 academic year will be considered valid for the counseling process. The counseling authorities do not need to wait for LoPs from individual institutions to proceed.
The NMC's Secretary addressed the heads of all medical institutes, referring to the MARB's public notice, and emphasized that the list of seats granted by the First Appeal Committee should be considered a valid document for the counseling process.
This expansion of PG seats reflects the Indian government's commitment to increasing the number of specialist doctors in the country. Over the past six years, there has been a significant increase in both undergraduate (MBBS) and postgraduate (MD/MS) seats, with 48,563 new MBBS seats and 29,080 new PG seats added across medical colleges in India. The government plans to add even more medical seats in the coming years to ensure adequate healthcare access for all regions of the country.
