As many as 40 medical colleges have been deaffiliated across the country in the last two months for allegedly not following the standards laid down by the National Medical Commission (NMC), official sources said on Tuesday.
About 100 more medical colleges in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Assam, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry and West Bengal may also face similar action, official sources said. An official source said the colleges were not following the prescribed norms and several lapses related to CCTV cameras, Aadhaar-linked biometric attendance procedures and faculty rolls were found during the inspection conducted by the commission.
According to government data, the number of medical colleges has increased significantly since 2014. Minister of State for Health Bharti Praveen Pawar told the Rajya Sabha in February that there were 387 medical colleges before 2014, but now their number has increased to 654, an increase of 69 per cent.
Apart from this, MBBS seats have increased by 94 percent, which has increased from 51,348 seats before 2014 to 99,763 now. There has been an increase of 107 per cent in the number of PG seats, from 31,185 before 2014 to 64,559 now.
Bharti Praveen Pawar had said that to increase the number of doctors in the country, the government first increased the number of medical colleges and then increased the MBBS seats. Measures taken and steps taken by the government to increase the number of medical seats in the country include a centrally sponsored scheme for setting up new medical colleges by upgrading district/referral hospitals. Under which 94 out of 157 approved new medical colleges are already functional.
Reacting to the de-affiliation of medical colleges, medical experts said the NMC is largely dependent on the Aadhaar-linked biometric attendance system, for which it considers only those faculty who are present between 8 am and 2 pm. are on duty during day time.
An expert said that the working hours of doctors are not fixed. They also have to work in emergency and night shifts. Hence the strictness of NMC regarding working hours has created this issue. Such micro-management is not practical for medical colleges and NMC should be flexible towards such issues. Another expert said, NMC is de-affiliating medical colleges considering deficiencies. Also, NMC has allowed registration of students in such colleges, which is contradictory. Moreover, such use is tarnishing India’s image globally as India is the biggest supplier of doctors and the world will lose faith in Indian doctors if such cases come to the fore.
