Dental Council of India stops dental colleges in India

Dental college proposals to be scraped due to dearth of job opportunities in BDS.

Due to dearth of job opportunities for students opting for BDS, a course in medical for dentistry,  India has made a decision to stop all dental colleges. The firm decision was taken by the Dental Council of India (DCI), the body that grants permission to establishments of new medical/dental institutes.

The decision was a result of several existing colleges, that wanted to scrap all requests for new institutes in the country. Apart from this, shortage of jobs in the dental sector has led to such a firm decision.

Statistics of Bachelors in Dental Surgery (BDS) in India:

• With about 309 dental colleges in the country, 26,000 dentists graduate every year

• In 1970, only 8000 students graduated

• In 2004, there was one dentist per 10,000 people in urban India, however, there was only one dentist per 2.5 lakh in rural India

• In 2010, the number of dentists went up to as high as 30, 570

• It is likely in 2020, that India has a surplus of about 1 lakh dentists in the country.

What do dignitaries have to say about the issue?

• DCI member and dean of Government Dental College Dr. Mansing Pawar said,  "It would be a good idea to consolidate our numbers now and strengthen the existing institutes"

• "Mushrooming of dental colleges in the past few years in India has led to unemployment among Indian dentists. Thousands of dentists are coming out every year with very low prospects of jobs", said Namrata Dagli, a student, in one of her papers, 'Increasing Unemployment in dental graduates'

• "Over the years, we have created a huge manpower of dentists and job avenues have shrunk. There is not much opportunity for today's passouts, except if they want to start their own practice, which too isn't easy. It needs money, space, infrastructure and the right attitude", said former acting president of DCI, Dr. Mahesh Verma.