Vacant Posts At National Medical Commission Show Misgovernance
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2024-09-29 02:14:00
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
Vacant Posts
The sorry state of affairs in National Medical Commission (NMC) continues. The government had established the body four years ago to regulate medical education including approving colleges and seats after widespread corruption was detected in the now-defunct Medical Council of India (MCI) that looked after the job before NMC. But as of today, as per a report in the Times of India, the Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB), the five-member body that approves medical colleges, is as good as defunct because four of its posts are lying vacant and the fifth is a part-time member whose term is expiring in December this year.
How Will It Do The Job?
This is when health minister J P Nadda has talked about adding 75000 MBBS seats in the next five years and the NMC has issued a notice inviting applications for starting new post graduate medical courses by existing institutes and also for establishing new standalone postgraduate institutes. How will the NMC, which does not have its regulatory wing in place, do the needful? There will be inordinate delays or worse, rush jobs to meet deadlines set by the government. As was the case with the MCI, the situation will lead to inefficiency and corruption.
Needs To Be Proactive
Why is that the government or its departments and bodies cannot be proactive (despite existing rules) in selecting candidates to replace those whose terms are coming to an end in a timely manner? NMC rules prescribe that three months before a member's term is to end, the process of selecting his successor should be initiated by referring the matter to the Search Committee. It is not known whether NMC has started the process in the instant case. In any case, given the way Search Committees work, three months is too short. This must be increased to 6 months with a condition that the process is completed in 5 months so that the new candidates gets a month's time to understand their new duties and take charge from the outgoing member.
Set The House In Order
The government must set NMCs house in order because it will impact the quality of medical institutes and medical education in the country. Too many sub-standard institutes have mushroomed in the past due to the corruption in the MCI. India needs world-class medical institutes with state-of-the-art infrastructure and top-grade curriculum so that it can produce good quality doctors. If bodies like NMC do not function properly, this will remain a distant dream and the brain drain will continue.
