The Medical Council of India will begin inspection of medical colleges in the state from October. The purpose is two-fold — to grant approvals for increased admissions and to sanction new colleges for the next academic year (2013-14).

The inspections will be carried out in October and November. The approvals will be granted by December-end. The department of medical education expects an addition of 1,500 MBBS seats next year to the already-existing 5,500 MBBS seats. With this, the total number of MBBS seats are likely to touch 7,000 next year.

While the state government has sent proposals for increasing admission to seven old government medical colleges, it has also asked to set up new government medical colleges in Nizamabad and Nellore.

The government has also granted ‘essentiality certificates’ to five private institutions to set up new medical colleges.

In addition, it has given nod to an increase of 100 seats each in Narayana Medical College, Nellore, and Deccan Medical College, Hyderabad, which currently have a capacity of 150 seats each.

The MCI teams will check the faculty, hospitals, infrastructure and facilities in the five new private medical colleges that received approval from the government.

The government also issued ‘essentiality certificates’ to five private institutions to set up new dental colleges from next year.

The MCI teams will simultaneously inspect these colleges and grant approvals by December-end. After this, the seats in dental colleges are likely to increase from 1,650 to 2,330.