Tamil Nadu clears seven new government nursing colleges, 660 more B.Sc. Nursing seats

Tamil Nadu has approved seven new government nursing colleges, adding 660 B.Sc. Nursing seats a year. The announcement was made in the state assembly, and it ends a gap that had run since 2014, when the last government nursing college in the state was started.

Where they go

• 100 seats each at colleges in Namakkal, Tiruchirappalli, Dharmapuri, Vellore, Tiruvannamalai and Tirunelveli, 600 seats in all.
• 60 seats at a college attached to the Coimbatore government medical college and ESI hospital.

The money

The six colleges carry an estimated outlay of ₹270.27 crore, about ₹45.04 crore each, funded through the state medical university.

When admissions actually open

This is the part to read carefully. Existing facilities are to be used to take in the new intake for the current academic year, but courses can only begin once the required statutory permissions, approvals and affiliations are in place. For a nursing aspirant that means two things: watch the state's nursing admissions portal rather than the announcement, and confirm a college's approval status before you pay a fee anywhere.

The wider picture

Government nursing seats are the most contested seats in the field, because the fee difference against a private college is enormous and the clinical exposure at a government teaching hospital is hard to match. Six hundred and sixty additional government seats in one state is a material change to those odds.

CareerBox News Desk, reporting on the announcement of seven new government nursing colleges made in the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly, funded through the state medical university. Official portal: tnmgrmu.ac.in. Dates and eligibility change; confirm them on the official portal before you act.