The government on Friday launched a four-year medical course to cater to the rural parts of the country, with the aim to fill the urban-rural void in medical services,

The truncated course focuses to produce 1.45 lakh rural doctors, health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said.

With majority of MBBS doctors disagreeing to work in India's most far flung and remote areas, the Medical Council of India and Union health ministry's ambitious project -- the Bachelor of Rural Medicine and Surgery (BRMS) grabbed back from a dozens of experts who had gathered in Delhi for a two-day national consultancy.

The four-year course, Bachelor of Rural Medicine and Surgery (BRMS), training will be initiated in three phases, the first two of one year each and the final one of 1½ years duration followed by a 6 month internship.

Sources reveal that 8% primary health centers are devoid of a doctor while nearly 39% are running without a lab technician and about 17.7% without a pharmacist.

Out of the sanctioned posts in community health centres, about 59.4% of surgeons, 45% of obstetricians and gynaecologists, 61.1% of physicians and 53.8% of paediatricians are found to be vacant. MCI also plans to set up medical colleges in 300 districts in the country where there are currently no medical colleges.