Acute shortage of job opportunities for dentists has prompted the Dental Council of India (DCI) to cut down the seat strength for the BDS course by half — from the current 100 to 50 — while giving approval to a new dental institution in the country.
“In view of poor job availability for the dentists, the General Body Council of the DCI has decided not to sanction more than 50 seats for any new dental college. The decision has also been taken keeping in view that presently around 30 to 40 per cent of the total seats in the dental colleges in the private sector has remained vacant for quite sometime,” said DCI president D Mazumdar.
The move is among a slew of reformative measures undertaken by the DCI recently in the backdrop of the fact that a sizeable number of over 20,000 dental doctors passing out every year from the 292 dental colleges — 253 of them being run privately — in India are unable to find jobs.
The General Body recently gave approval to just four new medical colleges, all in the private sector, sanctioning 50 seats in each of them even as they had applied for 100 seats.
These colleges also meet the criteria of being attached to a medical college situated within a 10-km radius, Mazumdar said. The measure is intended to provide dental students an exposure to medicinal subjects and surgery and also to plug the deficiencies in infrastructure in the existing colleges.
Presently, Mazumdar said, there is more than sufficient number of dental colleges in the country. “Hence, there is no need to have more seats when the dentists are not getting enough employment opportunities.”
Mazumdar has also written to the State Chief Ministers to stress on setting up dental departments at primary health centres, as these would cater to the need for dentists in the rural population. Presently, in India, there is one dentist for 50,000 persons, he noted.
Incidentally, majority of the dental colleges are concentrated in southern India with Kerala and Karnataka besides Tamil Nadu accounting for as many as 40 institutes.