India will soon start producing 5,000 more postgraduate doctors every year. The Centre on Thursday gave the go-ahead to raising the number of postgraduate seats across 148 state government medical colleges.

Nearly 4,000 seats will be added from the next academic session, that is 2011-2012, with a one-time grant of Rs 1,350 crore from the central government. Another 1,000 seats are expected to increase through the routine increase in the number of seats.

This increase will augment the 13,500 postgraduate seats in medical colleges across the country. Along with the increase in the number of seats in state government colleges, private colleges will also be able to admit more students as per revised norms from the next session.

The one-time grant of Rs 1,350 crore was cleared by the cabinet committee on cabinet affairs on Thursday under a 75%-25% funding pattern, with the Centre contributing 75%.

This decision will see more doctors specialising in pre and para clinical disciplines such as anatomy, microbiology, physiology, pharmacology, bio-chemistry, forensic medicine community medicine which are essential for teaching purpose.