The National Medical Commission (NMC) formally replaced the Medical Council of India on September 25 as the new regulator for medical education in the country.
Since then the MCI website has been off-limit with a message that it is undergoing changes. There is no news when the new website will become live.
“All the doctors in the country used to get registered with MCI for their practice and it is the only reference point to cross verifies their credentials,” Dr (Major) Gulshan Garg (retd) said.
Chairman of Sankalp Charitable Trust, Garg has played a crucial role in getting National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) implemented in the country through the Supreme Court order.
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“Today, I cannot find out whether a person is an approved medical practitioner,” Garg said.
He added, “The NMC hasn’t come all of sudden. When the government was aware that it is going for a transformation, it should have made prior preparation. It has been 12 days and there is no update how long it will take.”
Many corporate who are in the process of taking on board fresh medical practitioners have to put the process on the hold as they cannot verify the applicants claim if they wish to.
Besides, medical experts say that the declaration of NEET result is also round the corner and the website is the only source of information for the colleges.
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“How many approved medical colleges are there in India? How many seats are approved to each college to admit candidates for MBBS and PG courses? Which are the colleges that are refused permission to admit the new batch in the current academic year? These are basic information that every student wants to know,” Head of private medical college, who doesn’t want to be quoted, said.
He said that besides all these issues the website used to serve many useful purposes for candidates who either seek education in foreign medical colleges or passed out from there.
He added, “It is a primary source to disseminate credible information. Recently, NMC clarified about the validity of online medical education in India but many people are still clueless because the message was circulated through social media and WhatsApp but not through the NMC’s website.”
Outlook wrote to Dr Suresh Sharma, newly-appointed Chairman and Dr RK Vats, secretary of NMC but they didn’t respond.
