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NEW DELHI: The National Medical Commission has introduced a non-refundable one-time registration fee of Rs 2 lakh plus 18% GST for institutions seeking to start new MBBS colleges or increase undergraduate seats from the 2026–27 academic year. It has also cleared around 450 additional postgraduate (PG) medical seats for 2025–26 through the appeal process and removed the cap that limited MBBS seat expansion applications to 100 seats at a time.Explaining the new fee, Dr M K Ramesh, president of the Medical Assessment and Rating Board, said the move is aimed at ensuring serious intent and accountability, stressing that establishing a medical college cannot be treated as a routine business decision. He said the registration fee is separate from the existing application fee of Rs 5 lakh for 50 MBBS seats, which rises with higher intake, and only partly offsets the cost of inspections, including travel and stay for three to five assessors conducting multi-day assessments. “The fee applies equally to government and private colleges, generates a unique registration number for tracking applications, and is payable again only if an institution applies in a subsequent academic year, as reapplication is not permitted within the same year,” he said. On MBBS expansion, Dr Ramesh said the earlier 100-seat cap was withdrawn because it had no explicit backing in existing regulations and could not be legally sustained. While the cap was intended to prevent sharp jumps from 50 directly to 250 seats, it was removed after being found unsupported in law. The official said new medical colleges can apply for up to 150 MBBS seats, while existing colleges with 150 seats can expand up to 250, with applications considered on an all-or-nothing basis. Inspections will be intensified for institutions seeking large, single-cycle expansions.On postgraduate admissions, he said PG seat approvals by the first appeal committee are cumulative and ongoing. While earlier notices cited 171 and later 262 additional seats, the total PG seats cleared through appeals so far is around 450, with further additions possible. The additional PG seats—mostly incremental increases of one to four seats per programme—span high-demand specialties including general medicine, radiodiagnosis, dermatology, paediatrics, orthopaedics, obstetrics and gynaecology, psychiatry and general surgery, across medical colleges nationwide. According to the available list, most of these seats have gone to private medical colleges, though some government institutions are also included.The MARB has directed counselling authorities to include the newly sanctioned PG seats without waiting for individual Letters of Permission (LoPs), treating the consolidated list uploaded on the NMC website as a valid document for counselling. Officials said publishing consolidated appeal approvals online was introduced to speed up admissions and improve transparency.