To add capacity and increase its investment in the medical education sector, the Maharashtra government is looking at starting new medical colleges through the public-private partnerships (PPP) route. This will be a first-of-its-kind initiative.

"We are looking at the Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh) model where private parties start medical colleges and the government runs the allied hospital or vice-versa," medical education minister Vinod Tawde told dna.

Maharashtra is likely to settle for a model where the government starts and runs the medical college, with the private partner handling the hospital. "There are many models which we are looking at," said Tawde.

"We are examining this model for the seven new government medical colleges that have been proposed. Another route that is being examined could include the private parties setting up their machines (like those for MRI, CT scan) in the medical colleges, examining our patients free of cost and charging market rates for their own patients," said an official from the medical education department.

The medical education department is planning to start two medical colleges with an intake of 100 seats each at the undergraduate level in the coming academic year at Gondia and Chandrapur. Put together, these new hospitals and medical colleges will also help overhaul the state's bare-bones public health system.

The erstwhile Congress-NCP government had decided to set up seven new medical colleges in Mumbai, Gondia, Satara, Chandrapur, Alibag, Nandurbar, Baramati. Of these, Tawde said, the state had not been able to locate land for those in Mumbai, Alibaug and Satara.

Of the around 6,095 MBBS seats in Maharashtra, 2,100 are in government colleges, followed by 1,675 in deemed universities, 1,620 in private colleges, 460 in medical colleges run by civic bodies, 140 in the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, and 100 in the MGM college at Wardha.

Maharashtra has 14 government-run medical colleges at Ambejogai, Aurangabad, Latur, Nanded, Akola, Yavatmal, two in Nagpur, Dhule, Pune, Kolhapur, Miraj, Solapur and Grant Medical College (GMC) in Mumbai.

The new medical colleges are expected to provide some relief to aspiring students from the dog-eats-dog competition to get admission to government medical colleges as compared to non-transparent and costly private sector medical education.