NEW DELHI: For the first time, the National Medical Commission (NMC) has introduced a new regulation to impose a Rs. 1 crore penalty on medical college management for providing false or unverified information about faculty, infrastructure, and other hospital data. While the fine on the management will be Rs. 1 crore, it will be doubled the following year if they repeat the offense. In the third year, the medical college would face closure.“This is the new punishment clause, which was never introduced earlier. This has been introduced under the Maintenance of Standards of Medical Education Regulations (MSMER-23),” said Dr. Vijayendra Kumar, a member of the Undergraduate Medical Education Board (UGMEB), NMC. He told this paper that this will apply to all 706 medical colleges in the country. Apart from the fine on the management of the medical colleges, individual faculty members and staff would also be fined Rs. 5 lakh if they furnish wrong information to NMC.Under the new regulations, medical colleges and institutions must furnish all the details on the NMC portal. NMC is launching the portal, which will be available on its site, next week.After all the information regarding the medical college is updated on the portal, it will be opened to the public so they can also see the details of a particular medical college. The step was taken because it was found that some medical colleges during physical inspection by NMC would hire staff from outside and would show them as full-time faculty.“The institutions and faculty will now themselves submit the information to NMC, instead of NMC sending inspectors to the institutions to collect the required data. This will help confirm the availability of faculty, workforce, infrastructure, clinical material, etc, in the concerned medical institute,” Dr. Aruna Vanikar, President of UGMEB, told this paper. The new regulation covers the ‘annual disclosure report’ as mandated by the NMC Act 2019. As per the regulation, the Post-Graduate Medical Education Board (PGMEB) or UGMEB may evaluate the annual disclosure report to verify whether the medical college/institution fulfills the required conditions prescribed by the regulations.“The idea behind the regulation is to achieve transparency, trust, and efficiency in the assessment of institutions, thus minimising and almost removing human involvement and interference in the functioning of colleges,” Dr. Vanikar said.“This unique out-of-the-box notification will serve a two-pronged approach; while on the one hand, it will ensure transparency, efficiency, and accountability on the part of medical colleges and NMC, on the other it will help stakeholders to rate the college before seeking admission and shall eliminate inspector-raj over time,” she added.“However, to ensure all concerned are accountable for their job, heavy penalties have been introduced and defined for the first time,” she said.
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