India’s National Medical Commission (NMC) has opened its annual window for proposals to set up new medical colleges and to add MBBS seats at existing ones, for the 2027-28 academic year. A public notice dated 8 October 2026 from the commission’s Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB), signed by its President, M. K. Ramesh, sets out the requirements, fees and timetable. It was sent to all medical colleges the same day under a covering letter from NMC Secretary Dr Raghav Langer. The 2027-28 medical college applications window runs to the end of the year.
Applications are online only and come in two parts: Part A, the primary application and fee, and Part B, covering compliance with the Minimum Standard Requirements (MSR) and assessment. The public notice says Part A is open from 8 October to 30 November 2026, fee reconciliation closes on 4 December, and Part B runs from 1 November to 31 December 2026. The covering letter’s table instead gives 31 December 2026 as the last date for Part A and the fee, and 5 January 2027 for payment reconciliation. The NMC document does not explain the difference.
The market behind the 2027-28 medical college applications
The round opens against a seat base that is already the largest India has had. For 2026-27, the commission’s undergraduate seat matrix of 18 September lists 1,40,664 MBBS seats across 839 medical colleges, excluding institutes of national importance such as the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi, with 1,27,028 seats renewed from the previous year and 13,636 added, according to totals of the matrix published by Medical Dialogues.
How far the 2027-28 medical college applications expand that base will depend on how many sponsors can meet conditions that now require everything to be built, staffed and financed before a form is filed. The commission’s seat matrix is the document admissions counsellors and investors will watch when the round’s results feed through next year. The commission publishes successive versions of the matrix through the admissions season, its What’s New page shows, so the published total moves within a cycle as approvals and renewals land.
No credit for work in progress
The notice says infrastructure, departmental and statutory requirements for the proposed intake must be complete and operational on the date of application. Anything incomplete or under construction will not be considered, and the application will be rejected without further communication. Assessment will be made only against the number of seats applied for: a college that applies for 150 seats and falls short will be rejected, not considered for 50 or 100.
For new colleges, all faculty required under the MSR must be registered on the NMC’s Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS) and physically present within 15 days of the last date for applications. Colleges seeking more seats must have maintained the required faculty for existing seats in previous years, or the application will not be considered and they will be liable to a penalty decided by MARB. On inspection day, only staff registered on AEBAS and present before 10 am will count. Assessments may be physical, virtual or hybrid, and may be held on Saturdays and holidays.
Other conditions include a Consent of Affiliation from a recognised university, issued after 4 February 2026 following a local inspection and valid for one application only; hospital leases of at least 30 years; a bar on one hospital serving more than one college; three years of audited balance sheets and a solvency certificate issued within 90 days of the deadline; and disclosure by sponsors of links to any other medical college. Photographs found to be manipulated, including with artificial intelligence, make an application liable to rejection. Applicants must undertake to earmark a corpus fund, and the notice says colleges already operating must also maintain one. MARB will set the amount in a separate notice.
Fees and guarantees
Private applicants for a new college pay Rs 7.5 lakh plus 18% GST for 50 seats, Rs 15 lakh for 100 and Rs 22.5 lakh for 150; government applicants pay Rs 6.25 lakh, Rs 12.5 lakh and Rs 18.75 lakh, also plus GST. A non-refundable registration fee of Rs 2 lakh applies. Private colleges must lodge an electronic bank guarantee, valid for six years, of Rs 15 crore for 50 seats, Rs 20 crore for 100 and Rs 25 crore for 150, or Rs 5 crore for each additional 50 seats at an existing college. Government colleges give an undertaking instead.
The notice follows an NMC office memorandum of 5 October 2026 giving colleges three more weeks to enter faculty registration numbers on AEBAS, and warning that missing or incorrect entries will lead to automated blocking and rejection of daily attendance.
What has happened since
The compliance list has kept growing since the notice appeared. On 12 October the commission issued a circular on the constitution of patient safety committees or cells in medical colleges and institutions, published on its What’s New page. On 15 October it announced the grant of one additional attempt, which it calls a mercy attempt, for eligible MBBS students admitted in earlier academic years from 2019. Colleges weighing 2027-28 medical college applications will be budgeting for a regulator that adds obligations at this pace through the year.
What it means
TED analysis:
- For private sponsors: the bar on work in progress and the six-year bank guarantees mean capital must be committed in full before an application is filed, which favours groups that already run hospitals and have strong balance sheets.
- For affiliating universities: Consents of Affiliation must follow a local inspection, postdate 4 February 2026 and lapse after one use, which places more of the early screening on universities.
- For existing colleges: the corpus fund requirement and AEBAS attendance checks extend compliance costs beyond new applicants. The corpus amount, still to be announced by MARB, is the figure to watch.
