Mumbai, Apr 15: Medical students and interns along with resident doctors at government medical colleges across Maharashtra went on an indefinite strike from today demanding increase in the number of seats for post graduate courses.

However, the resident doctors at government hospitals in Mumbai would join the strike tomorrow.

The students are protesting the lack of seats which they said reduced from 1,900 in 2001 to 653 in 2007 and were further lowered to 411 in 2008, a representative of the interns Akshay Bafna said.

However, the members of the Mumbai wing of the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) will join the strike from tomorrow after fulfilling formalities with the Municipal authorities, a spokesperson for MARD said.

Teachers in medical colleges will also join the strike on Thursday, a senior official from the Teachers Welfare Association said.

Government medical college teachers will join the strike along with the students after it was decided that if the seats of post graduate courses were not increased, government hospitals would be reduced to primary health care centres due to the low number of resident doctors, Dr Shailesh Mohite, Head, Forensic Department, Nair Hospital and General Secretary of Teachers' Welfare Association said.

The Teachers' Association held a joint meeting held at Lokmanya Tilak Hospital at Sion to decide their future course of action.