Chennai, Oct 29 (IANS): With the Union health ministry granting approval for 150 seats each to the four new government medical colleges in Tamil Nadu, the total number of new MBBS seats in the colleges has risen to 1,450.

Tamil Nadu state Health Minister Ma Subramanian in a statement on Thursday evening said the Union health ministry has approved 150 new seats in the four new government medical colleges at Krishnagiri, Dindigul, Nagapattinam, and Ariyalur.

Earlier, 850 MBBS seats were approved and with these 600 seats the total number of new seats in the government medical colleges of the state would touch 1,450, the minister said.

The new 1,450 MBBS seats would take the total number of medical seats in the state to 9,100.

The state health minister said that the medical team appointed by the Union health ministry had earlier pointed out to some minor deficiencies in the furniture and books in the library of the four new medical colleges at Dindigul, Nagapattinam, Krishnagiri, and Ariyalur.

He said the state medical education director had visited Delhi three times in the past 15 days to appraise the inspection team on the rectification of these minor deficiencies.

Ma Subramanian while speaking to IANS said, "We have now got approval for 1,450 MBBS seats in this academic year and are expecting an additional 100 seats in Coimbatore medical college where there are 150 seats already. We expect the approval this year itself. There are now 9,100 MBBS seats in the state of Tamil Nadu, including in government colleges, self-financing colleges, and deemed universities."