Over a year after the National Medical Commission (NMC) Act, 2019, was notified, the regulatory body for medical education and ethics came into force on Friday. With this, the board of governors, chaired by Dr V.K. Paul, stands dissolved.
The board came into being after the Medical Council of India was dissolved in 2018, following charges of corruption. The creation of the NMC is being hailed by the government as a big-ticket reform in the field of medical education.
The NMC will be a 33-member body, of which up to 29 will be medical professionals. The body will be headed by professor Suresh Chand Sharma, former ENT head at AIIMS, while Dr Rakesh Kumar Vats, secretary-general of the board of governors, has been appointed as the commission's secretary.
The new body will regulate major aspects of medical education, including granting of permission to new colleges, determining fees for private medical colleges, ensuring quality standards and conducting the exit exam for the 70,000-odd MBBS students each year.
Apart from the core body, the NMC Act also provides for four autonomous boards to regulate medical education and ethics. Members of the four boards have also been appointed—the undergraduate medical education board will be headed by Dr Aruna V. Vanikar, professor and head, department of pathology, G. R. Doshi and Smt K.M. Mehta Institute of Kidney Disease and Research Centre, Ahmedabad; the PG board will be headed by Dr M.K. Ramesh, Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute, and the medical assessment and rating board will be headed by Dr Achal Gulati, Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Medical College. The medical ethics board will be headed by Dr B.N. Gangadhar, director, NIMHANS, Bengaluru. Dr Gangadhar was also part of the board of governors. Aside from the president, each board will have full-time and part-time members, too.
“The president and whole-time members of each autonomous board shall hold office for a term of four years, and the part-time members shall hold office for a term of two years,” the gazette notification for the boards and their members, reads.
Under the NMC Act, limited licenses can be granted to about 3.5 lakh non-medical persons or community health providers (CHPs). According to the new law, the CHPs will be able to provide primary care, and under the supervision of a doctor, secondary and tertiary care, too.
