MCI's unique 'ID'ea to curb faculty duplication

NEW INDIAN EXPRESS 

COIMBATORE: In a bid to prevent doctors from appearing as faculty in multiple medical institutions, the Medical Council of India (MCI) has decided to assign unique IDs for doctors across the country. The move is part of the MCI’s e-governance initiative.

The council has written to the deans of medical colleges across the country in this regard.

While unique IDs will be provided to all doctors, its primary use is to prevent doctors appearing as faculty in multiple medical colleges, sometimes in different states, to meet the council mandate on the number of faculty.

“This will help rein in duplication of faculty members. Currently, doctors register themselves under their respective State Medical Councils. Their registration number would be accompanied by a State code. If a doctor decides to permanently move to another State, they would have to remove their name from the existing list and register themselves with the medical council of the state to which they are relocating,” said Edwin Joe, dean of the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital.

Besides, the MCI has also decided to monitor the attendance of faculty members of medical colleges across the country through its e-governance initiative.

The menace of multiple affiliations of faculty members is not confined to MCI alone. Recently, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) had found out that more than 50,000 duplicate faculty were enlisted with it.

Following this, it had allotted unique ID numbers to nearly three lakh faculty across the country so that engineering colleges couldn’t ‘share’ faculty members to meet official norms.

Unique IDs prepared based on Aadhaar card details of faculty members were used to monitor their progress.

The council will also roll out an online platform that offers application tracking feature and a repository of certificates, to reduce the cost incurred by applicants to avail the services by offering e-payment options and reducing the need to travel.

The MCI’s e-governance initiative would also provide for a unified database and improved grievance redressal system, work flow-based processing as well as enhanced and user-friendly document management.