India’s apex medical regulatory authority has been operating with multiple vacancies for over four months, with its four autonomous boards lacking members and only one having a president, fuelling concerns in some medical circles about its decision-making processes.

The four boards under the National Medical Commission (NMC) that regulate undergraduate education, postgraduate education, assessment and rating, and ethics and registration have had neither whole-time members nor part-time members since at least September 25, 2024.

Only the Postgraduate Medical Education Board has a president, while the posts of the presidents of the Undergraduate Medical Education Board, Medical Assessment and Rating Board, and Ethics and Medical Registration Board are vacant.

The Union health ministry, responding on Friday to a Right to Information Act query sent by K.V. Babu, an ophthalmologist and RTI activist in Kerala, said the process of appointment of eligible candidates to vacant posts in the NMC is “under consideration”. The ministry said the posts of NMC secretary, three board presidents, and whole-time and part-time members of all four boards are vacant.

The Centre had established the NMC as a statutory body through legislation in 2020 to replace the Medical Council of India, the earlier regulatory body for medical education and practice that had become tainted by accusations of corruption and inefficiency.

“The NMC was created under the promise of transparency and accountability,” said Babu, who has been using the RTI Act for years to track developments relating to education, ethics, and governance in medical institutions. “With a large number of ex-officio members appointed by the government, it’s critical for members of the four autonomous boards to play a role in decision-making. It is unclear who’s currently taking the decisions that board members would.”

Babu said the ministry invited applications for the vacant posts in August 2024, less than two months before the positions fell vacant on September 25, 2024. “Under the vacancies, the question that comes up is whether the government is doing what the boards should be doing,” he said.

A central government medical college faculty member said he wouldn’t be “too bothered” by the vacant posts for four months. “It is expected that the vacant posts will be filled soon. For now, the bureaucracy at the NMC continues to do its work,” he said.

A proposal by the NMC in January this year to relax norms for appointing non-teaching consultant doctors and diploma-holders as medical college faculty had drawn criticism from sections of doctors concerned about what they described as the falling quality of
medical education.