NEW DELHI: A parliamentary committee has recommended that all doctors graduating from Indian medical colleges must serve for a year in rural and remote regions to plug a shortage in these areas. Currently, only a few states have mandated such service for graduates from government medical colleges Separately, it also said graduates from government medical colleges must practice in the country for a “minimum compulsory period.”“The committee is also given to understand that a large number of doctors who study in government medical colleges at the cost of the taxpayers money leave the country at the first given opportunity,” said the committee, which studied the National Medical Commission Bill aimed at replacing the much-criticised Medical Council of India.A lobby group for doctors said the one-year compulsory rural service recommendation cannot be implemented because infrastructure is not available. About 67,000 doctors graduate in India annually, but there are only 27,000 primary health centres (PHCs) and only 3,500 vacancies, according to Ravi Wankhedkar, president of the Indian Medical Association."This is a perception myth that there is a shortage of doctors in India," said Wankhedkar, adding that good governance, incentives and better PHCs would motivate more doctors to practice in these regions.While a majority of IMA’s concerns have been addressed in the recommendations, they are advisory in nature, he said.In a report tabled in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family recommended that all members of the NMC should mandatorily declare their professional and commercial involvements. Their personal assets and those of their dependents should be declared on the commission’s website “as and when they assume office and at the end of their tenure,” according to the report.These recommendations follow an observation that MCI, the existing regulatory body, has suffered a loss of credibility.The committee said the bridge course proposed in the bill to allow non-allopathic doctors to prescribe allopathic medicines should not be made mandatory. It recommended that state governments must implement measures to enhance the capacity of healthcare professionals like AYUSH practitioners for specific primary healthcare issues in rural regions.It said the proposal to regulate the fees of up to 40% of seats at medical colleges was a step in the right direction as there was no such provision currently. It also recommended regulation of fees for at least 50% of seats at several currently unregulated private medical colleges, deemed universities and deemed-to-be universities in order to remove discrepancies.However, it also said the existing fee regulatory mechanism for private medical colleges by state governments should not be diluted, as they already have a “well-defined” process for this in their separate state regulations.The committee said the NMC would have an uneven composition because only five members would be elected and the rest nominated. It recommended the commission’s strength be increased to 29 members from 25 for effective functioning.Of these 29 members, 10 should be state and Union Territory nominees in addition to the three part-time members already proposed on a rotational basis. The committee observed that three members was “too small” for effective state/UT participation in the commission.“The current bill presents a policy window for the government to overhaul the regulatory oversight of other streams of health professions as well,” the committee added.“This medical regulatory authority is for the students and teachers. A bill which is supposed to regulate them should have their representation,” said Wankhedkar.India is estimated to have one doctor for every 1,668 patients, according to a response to a question in the Lok Sabha on February 3, 2017. India had a shortfall of 3,027 doctors at PHCs as of March 31, 2017, a response dated February 9, 2018, showed.