Tamil Nadu’s medical education landscape is set for a major expansion as the National Medical Commission has approved 418 new postgraduate seats for self financing medical colleges for the 2025 to 26 academic year. This is one of the largest single year increases for private institutions in the state and it takes their combined PG capacity close to 1500 seats across a wide range of specialities.
Alongside the rise in private sector seats, the NMC has also sanctioned 58 new PG seats for government medical colleges in Tamil Nadu. In total, the state has received approval for 476 fresh seats this year.
At the national level, the NMC has cleared 4201 new PG seats across India for 2025 to 26. Tamil Nadu has received one of the highest state wise shares in this expansion.
The NMC has already uploaded the approved list of seats on its website. The Commission has also clarified that colleges do not need to wait for a formal Letter of Permission to participate in counselling. The published list will act as a valid reference during admissions.
However, the Tamil Nadu State Selection Committee has pointed out a practical hurdle. It cannot include seats in the counselling matrix if a college does not yet have proper university affiliation. The affiliation process requires the Letter of Permission and this step is still pending for some of the newly approved seats.
Because of this, many of the new seats were not available during the first round of PG counselling. Officials expect that a large portion of them will be added during the second round once all approvals and affiliations are finalised.
Several seats from the first round also remain unfilled. A majority of these are from the service category. These seats may be moved to the general pool in the upcoming rounds, which can increase options for non service candidates.
The 418 new seats in private medical colleges span core clinical departments such as anaesthesiology, general medicine, paediatrics, general surgery, dermatology, radio diagnosis, orthopaedics and ENT.
These are among the most in demand PG branches in the state. The increase is expected to ease competition and offer more choices to candidates who have been struggling for seats in popular specialities.
With these additions, self-financing institutions in Tamil Nadu are positioned to play an even larger role in shaping postgraduate medical training in the state.
(Rh/ARC/MSM)