TED NewsDesk, New Delhi: The National Medical Commission, consisting of 33 members, will start functioning from Friday, September 25th. Its predecessor, the Medical Council of India, was facing substantial corruption issues resulting in its dissolution in 2016. A Board of Governors formed in 2016 to carry forward the functioning of the MCI following it de-establishment.
According to the notification, the Chairperson of the National Medical Commission will be the HoD of ENT at AIIMS, New Delhi, Suresh Chandra. The Commission will have four sovereign panels to manage undergraduate medical programmes, postgraduate medical programmes, medical examinations, gradings, ethics and medical enrollment.
The NMC Act will come into action from Friday; it will regulate fee on half the seats in private medical institutions and deemed universities, stop probing into college re-registrations. It will also start the MBBS final exams to meet three ends: issuing MBBS graduates for practising of medicine; entrance exam for postgraduate medical programmes and entrance exam for medical graduate students from overseas. The test, called the National Exit Test, will take the place of the current National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for Overseas Medical Graduates Test and postgraduate programmes.
The new Test will also regulate the new group of non-MBBS intermediate healthcare professionals, like the nursing professionals and dispensary employees who have controlled access to prescribing medicines.
As per the notification, the presidents of four sovereign panels in NMC are BN Gangadhar, the Director of NIMHANS Bengaluru as the president of medical ethics and registration board; Aruna Vanikar, the HoD of Pathology; GR Doshi, Institute of Kidney Diseases, Ahmedabad (UG medical Board); Achal Gulati, the Director Principal of BR Ambedkar Medical College, Delhi.
NMC will be represented substantially by the New Delhi region since PGI Chandigarh Director Jagat Ram along with 11 full-time members with the title lasting three years will join the Commission on Friday.
The ten vice-chancellors who will be involved with the NMC for a coming couple of years are Raj Bahadur, VC of Frid Kot University of Health Sciences, Faridkot; Surender Kashyap, the VC of Atal Medical and Research University, Himachal Pradesh; OP Kalra, the VC of Pandit Bhagwat Dayal Sharma University of Health Sciences, Rohtak. After the completion of two years, changes will take place to involve VCs from other states.
Mukut Minz from Fortis Hospital, Mohali’s Urology Department has been given the role of a half- time member of the UG Medical Board.
The NITI Ayog put the stepping stones of the Commission in 2016 when it introduced the first draft.