In what comes as an encouraging development for the Yogi Adityanath government, Uttar Pradesh has taken a giant stride in medical education by increasing 20 per cent seats in post-graduate courses in government medical colleges in a year.

Principal Secretary (Medical Education) Alok Kumar informed that 518 PG seats have been increased by combining government and private medical colleges, which has benefited the students pursuing medicine.

According to official data, there were nearly 1,064 PG seats in private medical colleges in 2020-21 which have been increased to 1,382 in 2021-22. As far as government medical colleges are concerned, there were 1,027 seats available in 2020-21, which have been increased to 1,227 in 2021-2022. As compared to last year's 2,091 seats, this year the seats have increased to 2,608 in the medical colleges.

Similarly, a total of 900 new undergraduate seats were also added to government medical colleges across the state. The UG course, better known as MBBS, will be taught in nine new medical colleges of the state and each college has 100 seats.

In 2020-21, there were about 4,150 UG seats in private medical colleges and now they have increased to 4,500 in 2021-22. In government medical colleges, 2,928 UG seats were available in 2020-21, and have now increased to 3,828. Overall, as compared to last year's 7,078 UG seats, this year's UG seats have increased to 8,328.

"Uttar Pradesh is on its way to becoming a hub of medical education in the coming times. Improving health education has been a priority of the Yogi government for which significant steps were taken in the last five years. With the opening of new medical colleges, the opportunities for the youth willing to study medicine will also increase significantly," Kumar said.