Equity at the cost of capacity

No reasonable person would look at the state of the health system in India and conclude it has enough doctors

Should the Government of India or national regulators think that penalising one section of the country is necessary for the improvement of another? This is not just contradictory in theory, but has in practice proved detrimental to India’s economic development in the past. And yet that seems to be the instinct behind some recent decisions — in particular the restrictions freshly imposed on the expansion of medical colleges.

The National Medical Commission oversees various facets of medical education in India. A recent and controversial regulation from the Commission shut down further expansion of the medical college network in the country unless