New Delhi: India stands far below WHO's norm in providing doctors to citizens, as the latest data says there are a total of 11,59,309 registered allopathic doctors in the country.
As per data provided by the Medical Council of India (MCI), there are a total of 11,59,309 allopathic doctors registered with the state medical councils and Medical Council of India as on March 31.
"Assuming 80 per cent availability, it is estimated that around 9.27 lakh doctors may be actually available for active service. It gives a doctor to population ratio of 1:1456 as per current population estimate of 1.35 billion, which is lower than the WHO norm of 1:1000," said Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Harsh Vardhan on Friday in the Parliament.
He said that the government has taken several steps to increase the number of seats in various medical institutions and colleges across India.
Accordingly, in 2017-18, the number of UG seats was 2340. The number went up to 2910 in 2018-19 and 10565 in 2019-20.
According to records, Maharashtra has the highest number of registered doctors with 173384, followed by 135456 in Tamil Nadu and 122875 registered doctors in Karnataka.
With only 74, the northeastern state of Mizoram has the lowest number of registered doctors.
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