india

Updated: Aug 08, 2019 20:41 IST

In the next six months, India will get a National Medical Commission (NMC) that is meant to replace the graft-tainted Medical Council of India (MCI), Union health minister Harsh Vardhan said on Thursday.

The National Exit Test (NEXT), meant to work as the common final year MBBS exam, licentiate exam to practice medicine and criteria for admission to post graduate (PG) medical courses, will be implemented within three years. It will also be used to screen foreign medical graduates intending to work or study in India.

The Union health ministry will soon notify the National Medical Commission (NMC) Act 2019 that received the President of India’s assent after Parliament cleared it on Monday, August 5.

The 33 member commission will have 29 doctors as members in different capacities. The states will be represented by 19 members, allaying fears that the states have not been given adequate representation in the Commission. Of the total state representation, 10 state members will be the vice chancellors of various universities across states, and nine will belong to various state medical councils.

“Our resident doctors were misguided and some even went on strike. After I explained to them that the rules and regulations were yet to be drafted and would be done after extensive consultation with the stakeholders that they saw reason,” Harsh Vardhan said.

“There are a lot of misconceptions spread around the Act but now that the Bill has been passed, and is an Act, people concerned need to accept that reform in medical education in the form of the national medical commission is the need of the hour,” he added.

Even as the ministry will be in the process of constituting the medical commission, simultaneously it will also be drafting rules for the implementation of the commission.

“Some parts of the rules will be drafted along with the constitution of the commission and forming regulations will be the job of the commission once it is in place,” Preeti Sudan, health secretary said.