Health ministry asks NMC to defer minimum standards for medical colleges — ‘unrealistic’

Health ministry asks NMC to defer minimum standards for medical colleges — ‘unrealistic’

National Medical Commission nearly doubled bed, faculty, and patient requirements for new and existing medical colleges in August 2023 notification.

SUMI SUKANYA DUTTA

05 March, 2024 08:00 am IST

New Delhi: The Union health ministry and the National Medical Commission (NMC) are not on the same page about the 2023 Minimum Standard Regulations Under-Graduate (MSR-UG), which lays down the guidelines for setting up new medical colleges and initiating new courses, besides regulating student intake capacity.

Medical education regulator NMC, thePrint has learnt, updated the regulations in a notification in August 2023. The notification nearly doubled the number of hospital beds, faculty members, patients, etc., required to set up new medical colleges, increase seats in existing colleges, or start new courses from the 2024-25 academic year.

Sources in government said the Union health ministry feels the new regulations have “unrealistic” infrastructure and faculty requirements, which medical colleges are finding difficult to fulfill.

“We have asked the NMC to defer the MSR-UG guidelines for two years and suggested a review of the regulations before their implementation,” a top official in the health ministry told ThePrint.

The Print reached health secretary Apurva Chandra via emails and phone calls but received no response by the time of publication. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.

The 2023 MSR-UG also included a controversial clause, which said the NMC would permit new MBBS colleges and more undergraduate seats in existing colleges based on the state population — 100 MBBS seats for every 10 lakh population. The NMC, however, deferred the plan after pushback from southern states, which have already breached this ratio.

Now, health ministry sources have cited a letter by the All India Medical Education Federation (AIMEF), a voluntary association of government and non-government medical institutes, saying that 58 medical colleges applied for an increase in MBBS seats this year, but 56 faced rejection under the 2023 MSR-UG. ThePrint has seen a copy of the letter.

The letter, undersigned by Dr Virendra Kumar, managing director, AIMEF, has been sent to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), apart from the health ministry and the NMC. It also said that of the 253 applicants seeking renewal of UG courses, 212 faced rejection under the new regulations.

The Print could not independently verify the authenticity of the letter as there was no footprint of the association on the internet.

Dr. Aruna Wanikar, chairperson of the NMC UG board, said the regulations were announced after consultations with medical institutes and government representatives, intending to raise the standards of existing and new colleges.

“If we have to, we will defer the new regulations, or else, we will review them. But, the reality is that many institutes, even today, are not following the Aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance system (AEBAS) and close-circuit TV monitoring that also has to link with the NMC national command centre despite these regulations existing from before the 2023 MSR-UG. We are just trying to enforce stricter norms for raising the standard of medical training,” she said.

Overall, 708 institutes in the country offer an MBBS degree to students. The number of UG medicine seats in India was 1,08,848 in 2023.