India Has Only One Doctor per 811 People, Government Data Shows

India has one allopathic or AYUSH doctor available for every 811 people, the Union Health Ministry informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

Responding to a written question, Health Minister J. P. Nadda said the estimate is based on 80 percent availability of the country’s registered practitioners across both systems of medicine.

According to the updated figures submitted to Parliament, India has 13,88,185 registered allopathic doctors and 7,51,768 AYUSH practitioners. Factoring in active availability, the combined pool yields the national doctor-population ratio of 1:811.

Nadda also highlighted a major expansion in India’s medical education capacity over the past decade. The number of medical colleges has more than doubled from 387 to 818 since 2014. Undergraduate MBBS seats increased from 51,348 to 1,28,875, while postgraduate seats rose from 31,185 to 82,059 during the same period.

The minister outlined multiple government measures aimed at addressing shortages in underserved, rural, and tribal regions. Under the centrally sponsored scheme to establish new medical colleges attached to district or referral hospitals, 137 of the 157 approved institutions are now functional.

Nadda informed the House that the Family Adoption Programme (FAP) has been added to the MBBS curriculum to improve community-level healthcare engagement. Under FAP, medical colleges adopt villages, and MBBS students adopt families for regular follow-up on vaccination, growth monitoring, menstrual hygiene, iron–folic acid supplementation, nutrition, vector control, and medication adherence. The programme also enables continuous awareness on government health schemes.

He further noted that the District Residency Programme of the National Medical Commission mandates postings of second- and third-year postgraduate students in district hospitals to strengthen specialist availability at the secondary-care level.

To encourage specialists to serve in remote regions, the government provides a hard-area allowance along with residential quarters, he said. States have also been permitted to offer negotiable salaries under the National Health Mission, including flexible models such as “You Quote, We Pay” to attract specialists.

Additionally, Nadda said the Registration of Medical Practitioners and Licence to Practise Medicine Regulations allow temporary registration of foreign-qualified, foreign-registered doctors for training, observership, fellowships, research and other approved purposes.

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