A high-level committee headed by Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya is proposing the scrapping of Medical Council of India (MCI) and replacing it with the National Medical Commission (NMC).
Besides Panagariya, the panel, which is looking into the issue of poor regulation of medical education by MCI, includes Prime Minister's Additional Principal Secretary P K Mishra, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant and Health Secretary Bhahanu Pratap Sharma.
"The committee has firmed up its decision to scrap the MCI and replace it with the NMC, which will take over all its responsibilities. The main objective behind this is to end the inspector raj in the medical field in the country," a senior government official said.
NMC will become the main regulatory body and will take over all roles and responsibilities of the MCI, he said.
Another important aspect is that the new body will have eminent doctors and experts from related fields to suggest the direction that should be given to medical education in the country so as to ensure that the quality of education is at par with global standards, the official added.
"The committee met for numerous times and held detailed discussions on how to create a world-class professional structure of the new body. Consultations were held with a lot of eminent doctors, office holders of the MCI, former Health Secretaries and medical officers from the states," he said.
Confirming the development, another senior government official said that the work on the restructuring is "more than half way through" on the draft.
The biggest change will be that in the existing MCI, the members are elected and it has created the biggest problem as eminent doctors did not get a chance to participate in workings of the MCI, the official said.
Another suggestion that the high-level panel is making is that the regulators in the new body will be selected and will not be elected.
This selection will be done by a high level Search-cum-Selection committee, which will be a transparent process and will work on bringing the best.
NMC will have around 19-20 members and their tenure will be about five years. It will also have members from other fields such as economics, law, etc in a bid to inculcate more professionalism in the body, he said.
"It will have a chairman as well as there will be four Boards -- Under Graduate Medical Board, Post Graduate Medical Board, Accreditation and Assessment Board and a board for registration of medical colleges as well monitoring of the ethics in the profession," the official said.
These Boards will be given autonomy and they will work on the fields for which they are formed.
Also, the National Medical Board (NMB) will become a part
of the NMC as it is felt that this will help in neutralising the conflict in recognition of degrees between the MCI and the NMB.
This will help make the system more assessment-based and will focus on outcomes as the present system is more input-based.
There will also be a Medical Advisory Council (MAC), with members from the states like an eminent professional such as a professor from a medical college, etc. There will be two members from the union territories. NMC members will also be its members and its role will be advisory.
The official said that the committee has proposed to set up an altogether new body with three pronged approach -- career, enterprise and ethics.
Earlier this year, a parliamentary committee had called for revamping the MCI saying, it has failed in its role as a regulator which has led to a downfall in India's medical education system.
The committee even asked the government to exercise its constitutional authority and take decisive action to restructure and revamp the regulatory system of medical education and practice.
"Due to massive failures of the MCI and lack of initiatives on the part of the government in unleashing reforms, there is total system failure due to which the medical education system is fast sliding downwards and the quality has been hugely sidelined in the context of increasing commercialisation of medical education and practice," the report had said.
MCI has failed to create a curriculum that produces doctors suited to Indian context, specially in rural and poor urban areas, the panel had said adding it also failed to maintain uniform standards of undergraduate and postgraduate medical education.
