The Maharashtra government will increase the existing number of MBBS seats by 2000 from the next year to accommodate more students, the Legislative Council was told on June 19.

The Medical Education Minister also told the Upper House that the government was in the process to hike seats for post-graduate medical courses. He was responding to a calling attention raised by NCP's Hemant Takle. Currently, civic and state-run colleges in the state have around 3000 seats in all.

Takle sought to know the stand of the government on granting reservation to Maratha students in post-graduate medical courses under the Socially and Economically Backward Class (SEBC) category against the backdrop of a supreme court judgement. Governor C Vidyasagar Rao had last month signed an ordinance to provide quota under the Socially and Economically Backward Class (SEBC) Reservation Act, 2018 to candidates seeking admission to post-graduate medical courses.

Mahajan also admitted that some students faced difficulties during the admission procedure because of the 16 per cent reservation that came into effect for the Maratha community. He assured the Council that the admission process would be more streamlined the next year.

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court had last month said that 16 per cent reservation given to the Maratha community under the SEBC category will not be applicable to admissions to the post-graduate (PG) medical and dental courses this year. The government later approached the Supreme Court, which upheld the verdict of the High Court. Many students, who had got admission to post-graduate medical courses under the SEBC quota, had appealed to the state government to find a suitable solution.