Why NMC regulation on student migration will control ‘backdoor’ entries

Why NMC regulation on student migration will control ‘backdoor’ entries

There is a dire need to bring all medical colleges at par in terms of facilities, funding, and quality of teaching to prevent the temptation to migrate from one college to another

Rajlakshmi.Ghosh@timesgroup.com

In the Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023, published in the official Gazette, NMC UG Board addressed the issue of student migration and stated, ‘No student designated to a Medical Institution, notwithstanding anything stated in these regulations, shall seek migration to any other Medical Institution. " This contradicts the previous rules which did not restrict the migration of students from government to private institutes and vice versa.

Earlier, the candidates used to be eligible for migration only after qualifying for the first professional MBBS examination. Migration during the clinical course of study was, however, not allowed on any ground. College migration has further come into focus with around 150 medical students in Gujarat facing uncertainty regarding their future as their applications for transfer to other medical institutes are still pending. Now that the National Medical Commission (NMC) has stopped the migration of MBBS students, it remains to be seen whether the mandate will impact their careers. In the larger context, experts believe that the NMC guidelines will put an end to malpractices.

A senior health ministry official on condition of anonymity says, “Earlier, some colleges were charging hefty sums to provide the mandatory No Objection Certificate (NOC) to students who were inclined to migrate to government colleges. This led to instances of backdoor entry to government colleges, providing students with over 7 lakh rank in the NEET, a means to gain entry into the better-known government colleges where students within the 20,000-30,000 ranks were admitted. As a rule, students can migrate to colleges, whether government or private, during the multiple counselling rounds post the NEET results, where allotment of seats is merit based. But given the earlier provision, some students were migrating to colleges on completion of their first year MBBS, simply because they had the money and power to seek this option. ” The blanket ban on migration appears to be a departure from the Draft Regulations, wherein NMC had specified that migration of students from one medical college to another medical college will be granted as 6/19/2023, 8:59 AM


As per the guidelines of UGMEB of NMC, only in exceptional cases to the most deserving among the applicants for good and sufficient reasons and not on routine grounds. Migration will be from a government medical college to a government medical college and from a non-government medical college to a non-government medical college only. No mutual exchange would be permitted for such cases. Even prior to that, as per the 2008 amendments to the MCI Regulations on Graduate Medical Education, 1997, migration could be granted on any genuine ground subject to the availability of vacancy in the college where migration was sought and fulfilling the other requirements laid down in the Regulations.

Migration at that juncture was restricted to 5% of the sanctioned intake of the college during the year and was not permitted on any ground within the same city. “The 5% window for migration could not prevent the unethical practices for a regulation that was meant only for exceptional cases,” says the health ministry official. The new NMC regulation seems therefore like a blessing in disguise. Dr Manoj Andley, director professor of Surgery, Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi, cites instances of students who were allotted seats in tier 2 and tier 3 town medical colleges, but dissatisfied with the quality of teaching and infrastructure, preferred migrating to medical colleges near their hometowns, mostly because “they were well connected”. This also led to wastage of seats in the small towns.

“While the NMC banning migration is welcome, there is a dire need to bring uniformity across all medical colleges in terms of facilities, funding, and quality of teaching and training, so that students do not get tempted to shift from one college to another,” Andley says. “The present GMER (June 2023) will prevent the disruption of the continuity of medical education. Earlier, the migrations were arbitrary and subjective and were not based on a mutual transfer, which led to the vacancy of a seat in one medical college and its subsequent loss of revenue,” says Dr B Unnikrishnan, dean, Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, elaborating that location could be a key reason for migration, but there could be other genuine reasons too, such as medical, psychosocial, economic, quality of medical education and clinical load as contributing factors.

All medical colleges need to furnish a compulsory annual disclosure report that will help a student make an informed choice on the selection of the medical college right at the start, without mulling over alternatives at a later stage while pursuing their undergraduate education, Dr Unnikrishnan adds