New Delhi: The Union Health Ministry has decided to soon relax the norms to open medical colleges. Health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Friday has asked the Medical Council of India (MCI) to prepare a series of medical reforms within a month. The most important reform among these is concerned with the land required to start medical colleges.

Currently, medical college can be started on a 10-acre plot in nine cities - Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Pune and Kanpur. The ministry is now planning to expand this list by including state capitals of Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, which are not only short of human resources but also known for poor health indicators.

These states will be allowed to have split campuses - hospital and medical college within 10km of each other. This facility is available only in north-eastern and hilly states, which require 20 acre of plot to start a medical college.

India has a density of one medical college per 38.41 lakhs people. Around 315 medical colleges are there across 188 of 642 districts. The ratio is worse in certain states like 95 lakhs in Uttar Pradesh, 115 lakhs in Bihar, 73 lakhs in Madhya Pradesh, 68 lakhs in Rajasthan.

India has the largest number of medical colleges in the world, producing over 30,000 doctors and 18,000 specialists every year. However, its average annual output is 100 graduates per medical college in comparison to 125 in Central Europe, 110 in North America, 220 in Eastern Europe and 149 in Western Europe.