The Parliamentary Standing Committee which has vetted the National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill recommended the Central government not to make the bridge course mandatory.

The government in the Bill made a provision for a bridge course to allow AYUSH practitioners to prescribe allopathy medicines in a limited way to address the shortage of doctors in rural areas. The government's decision sparked outrage and protests from doctors who accused the government of legalising quackery.

"The Committee is of the view that the bridge course should not be made a mandatory provision in the present Bill," the Parliamentary Standing Committee said presenting the submitting its report to Rajya Sabha.

The NMC Bill, if passed in the Parliament, will replace the Medical Council of India (MCI) - regulatory body of medical education in the country.

The 31-member committee that reviewed the Bill chaired by Rajya Sabha MP - Ram Gopal Yadav of Samajwadi Party asked the government to leave it to the states to address the problem of shortage of human resources.

"The Committee, therefore, recommends that the state governments may implement measures to enhance the capacity of the existing healthcare professionals including AYUSH practitioners, B.Sc (Nursing), BDS, B.Pharma, etc, to address their State specific primary healthcare issues in the rural areas," the Committee said.

The government in its submission before the committee said that the mandatory provision to include Bridge Course was to address the demand-supply gap in healthcare.

The government said the doctor-population ratio of India is 1:1655 as compared with the WHO standards of 1:1000, in addition, city doctors are not willing to work in rural areas with Urban Rural ratio of doctor density (3.8:1).

"There are 7,71,468 AYUSH practitioners in India who can be leveraged to improve the health access situation of the country," the government said.

Further, the government said it needs large human resource for its ambitious target to revamp 1,50,000 sub health centres into health and wellness centres.

The government in its bill also proposed a national register to include licensed Ayush practitioners who qualify for the bridge course.

States such as Maharashtra, Assam, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh have already amended their Acts and permitted AYUSH professionals to practice modern systems and prescribe all modern medicines.

​The standing committee recommended to increase NMC powers to fix norms for regulating fees for a proportion of seats in private medical institutions to 50 percent.

The Bill empowers the NMC to regulate fees for only 40 percent of the total seats in private medical institutions. For the rest of the seats, the institutions are free to charge the fees that they may deem appropriate as per their requirements.

The standing committee also recommended against a common nationwide exit test for MBBS doctors called as the National Licentiate Examination (NLE) and asked the NLE be integrated with the final year MBBS examination and be conducted at the state level.

The NMC bill proposes a common exit test for MBBS doctors called as the National Licentiate Examination (NLE) as an instrument of quality assurance, and to ensure that the quality and competencies of a doctor, before one starts practicing, are guaranteed and standardised.