NEW DELHI: The government has approved a record number of over 4,000 PG medical seats in various medical colleges and hospitals for the academic session 2017-18. Of the total, 2,046 seats will be added to medical colleges.With this, the total number of available PG medical seats has increased to 35,117.Looking at the need to increase PG seats in clinical subjects, the government had decided to amend the teacher-student ratio for these subjects in government medical colleges.This change alone has resulted in the creation of 1,137 extra seats in 71 colleges.Many other government colleges, out of the total of 212, are still in the process of sending their proposals and it is expected that at least 1000 more seats will be added during the month of March 2017.Diplomate National Board (DNB) seats, which are equivalent to MD/MS, have increased by 2,147 in the last one year.Thus, there has been a total addition of 4,193 PG seats in the country so far, and a further addition of more than 1000 seats is likely during March 2017.Once that happens, the Budget announcement of adding 5,000 PG medical seats in the country is likely to be achieved soon.