Govt appoints board to supersede Medical Council of India
TNN | Sep 27, 2018, 04.26 AM IST
The government on Wednesday superseded the Medical Council of India appointing a board of governors to take over the council's powers and functions pending passage of the National Medical Commission Bill that seeks to replace the MCI with a freshly constituted regulatory body.
Following an ordinance that empowered the government, the health ministry issued a notification asking the president, vice-president and other members of the MCI to vacate their offices immediately. The notification also stated that until a new council was reconstituted, a board would be constituted to take over the functioning of the MCI. The NMC Bill is pending in Parliament.
The new board consists of the members of the earlier oversight committee appointed by the ministry following a Supreme Court order and two fresh names, Dr Balram Bhargava, the director general of the Indian Council for Medical Research, and Dr S Venkatesh, the director general of health services (DGHS). Of the earlier OC members, Niti Aayog member Dr Vinod Paul will be the board chairperson, while directors of AIIMS-Delhi, PGIMER Chandigarh and the National Institute of Mental Health& Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) Bangalore, Dr Randeep Guleria, Dr Jagat Ram, Dr BN Gangadhar respectively, as well as Dr Nikhil Tandon, professor in AIIMS, will be members. Dr Sanjay Shrivastava, former deputy director general of health servces has been appointed secretary general to the board.
The oversight committee had resigned earlier this month. While the stated reason was that their one-year tenure had ended, sources had told TOI that committee was also unhappy with the lack of cooperation from the MCI.
Interestingly, after the NMC Bill could not be taken up in the monsoon session of Parliament that ended on August 10, the health ministry wrote to states and universities to start the process of electing new MCI members as the tenure of 80 of the 103 council members would end in November or December. When the tenure of the current MCI ended on November 4 last year, it had been given an extension of one year.
Briefing the media on Wednesday, finance minister Arun Jaitley said that since the term of the elected body of the MCI was ending shortly, a need was felt to run it by a committee of eminent persons. Thus an ordinance to enable this was cleared by the cabinet on Wednesday morning and subsequently signed by President Ram Nath Kovind.
With the ordinance being promulgated, secretary general Dr Shrivastava along with local police and an SDM reached the MCI office in Dwarka to seal the premises and asked the staff to vacate the building taking their personal belongings with them. They were told that only those specifically asked to do so need to come to office from now on.
The MCI had been superseded through an ordinance in May 2010 as well after then president Dr Ketan Desai was arrested in April 2009 on bribery charges. The board constituted at the time was supposed to be only for a year as the government planned to bring in the National Council for Human Resources in Health Bill within that time to subsume MCI and all other regulatory bodies related to health. However, a year later, the bill had not been cleared by the cabinet and hence the term of the board was extended by one year at a time by amending the ordinance till the MCI was reconstituted with people nominated by central and state governments constituting almost 50% of the council on November 6, 2013 as per provisions contained in the IMC (Amendment) Second Ordinance 2013. The proposed Bill remained on paper.
TNN | Sep 27, 2018, 04.26 AM IST
The government on Wednesday superseded the Medical Council of India appointing a board of governors to take over the council's powers and functions pending passage of the National Medical Commission Bill that seeks to replace the MCI with a freshly constituted regulatory body.
Following an ordinance that empowered the government, the health ministry issued a notification asking the president, vice-president and other members of the MCI to vacate their offices immediately. The notification also stated that until a new council was reconstituted, a board would be constituted to take over the functioning of the MCI. The NMC Bill is pending in Parliament.
The new board consists of the members of the earlier oversight committee appointed by the ministry following a Supreme Court order and two fresh names, Dr Balram Bhargava, the director general of the Indian Council for Medical Research, and Dr S Venkatesh, the director general of health services (DGHS). Of the earlier OC members, Niti Aayog member Dr Vinod Paul will be the board chairperson, while directors of AIIMS-Delhi, PGIMER Chandigarh and the National Institute of Mental Health& Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) Bangalore, Dr Randeep Guleria, Dr Jagat Ram, Dr BN Gangadhar respectively, as well as Dr Nikhil Tandon, professor in AIIMS, will be members. Dr Sanjay Shrivastava, former deputy director general of health servces has been appointed secretary general to the board.
The oversight committee had resigned earlier this month. While the stated reason was that their one-year tenure had ended, sources had told TOI that committee was also unhappy with the lack of cooperation from the MCI.
Interestingly, after the NMC Bill could not be taken up in the monsoon session of Parliament that ended on August 10, the health ministry wrote to states and universities to start the process of electing new MCI members as the tenure of 80 of the 103 council members would end in November or December. When the tenure of the current MCI ended on November 4 last year, it had been given an extension of one year.
Briefing the media on Wednesday, finance minister Arun Jaitley said that since the term of the elected body of the MCI was ending shortly, a need was felt to run it by a committee of eminent persons. Thus an ordinance to enable this was cleared by the cabinet on Wednesday morning and subsequently signed by President Ram Nath Kovind.
With the ordinance being promulgated, secretary general Dr Shrivastava along with local police and an SDM reached the MCI office in Dwarka to seal the premises and asked the staff to vacate the building taking their personal belongings with them. They were told that only those specifically asked to do so need to come to office from now on.
The MCI had been superseded through an ordinance in May 2010 as well after then president Dr Ketan Desai was arrested in April 2009 on bribery charges. The board constituted at the time was supposed to be only for a year as the government planned to bring in the National Council for Human Resources in Health Bill within that time to subsume MCI and all other regulatory bodies related to health. However, a year later, the bill had not been cleared by the cabinet and hence the term of the board was extended by one year at a time by amending the ordinance till the MCI was reconstituted with people nominated by central and state governments constituting almost 50% of the council on November 6, 2013 as per provisions contained in the IMC (Amendment) Second Ordinance 2013. The proposed Bill remained on paper.
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