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Bending rules to get NMC’s permission: How medical colleges in India are doing it?

The college managements bring in fake patients solely for the purpose of NMC's surprise inspections, paying each person ₹1000 per day.

Sumit Jha

Published Jul 25, 2024 | 7:00 AM ⚊ Updated Jul 25, 2024 | 7:00 AM

Bending rules to get permission from NMC: How medical colleges are doing it?

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In 2023, the National Medical Commission released a set of new guidelines for starting new medical colleges and for renewal of licenses of the granted medical colleges.

The guideline put stringent effort into infrastructure, including the number of hospital beds and faculty members necessary to establish new medical colleges, adequate faculty across various specialties, Aadhar-based biometrics, and sufficient patient inflow for clinical training.

But, now allegations have come from different sections of the medical field, which has explained a way through which these medical colleges are bending the rule.

Dr. Namani Sathyanarayana, Assistant Professor of Anatomy at Shri Rawatpura Sarkar Institute of Medical Sciences and Research has written a letter to the NMC pointing out the flaws the medical college is bringing and bending the rules.

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How colleges bend the rules effortlessly

In his letter, Sathyanarayana pointed out that the college management has appointed 90 percent of the faculty solely for the purpose of NMC’s surprise inspections. Faculty members are required to attend the college only on the day of their joining.

The college management takes the thumbprint impressions of the faculty members at the time of joining. “It has come to our notice that the management uses these thumb impressions to create fake silicon fingerprints, which are then used for daily AEBAS (Automated Electronic Biometric Attendance System) attendance records,” said Sathyanarayana.

He said that despite assurances from the management that salaries will be paid after NMC inspections, we have not received our dues. The management has repeatedly failed to disburse salaries even after the inspections.

He also said that the college management receives advance notice of the NMC inspections. “For instance, on 16th June, we were informed to attend the inspection scheduled for 19th June. We complied, but the inspection on the said day was was cancelled,” said Dr Sathyanarayana.

“We were again informed on 25 June of a surprise inspection on 28 June. We reached the college a day before the inspection. The inspection team, comprising one inspector from Haryana and two from Maharashtra, gave favourable reports and received substantial bribes,” explained Dr Sathyanarayana. Taking to X, he wrote,

He said that the college management is not relieving us in the AEBAS system, preventing us from joining any other college. Additionally, they continue to withhold our salaries. The college management is threatening us, stating that they will retaliate if we file any complaints.

Additionally, the college management brings in fake patients solely for the purpose of NMC surprise inspections, paying each person ₹1000 per day.

“From the very first day of our employment, none of the doctors have been attending their duties on a daily basis. The college management has never asked us to attend regularly. It was not made clear to us that our employment was temporary. Unbeknownst to us, the college took our declarations, presenting us as full-time faculty members to NMC without any intention of having us perform actual duties,” he said.

“Without regular faculty and genuine patients, the NMC inspectors accepted substantial bribes from the college management, resulting in falsely positive inspection reports. The manipulation of the inspection process, aided by the inspectors’ willingness to overlook critical deficiencies, has led to a significant breach of trust in the regulatory framework. We were astounded and deeply concerned upon discovering that the college had been granted the Letter of Permission (LOP) by NMC for 150 MBBS seats for the year 2024-25 as a new establishment,” he said.

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Doctors open up about their ordeal

Sharing such an experience, one of the doctors on X said that many such activities are known to several medicos in so many new private colleges. “Not many people dare to open up about it. Fake hiring, doctors on rental, patients on rental on the pretext of giving them food, and even instruments on rental,” said Dr. Tanmay Motiwala on X.

Others pointed out that State government medical colleges transfer faculty from one institute to the other just before inspections. Also, inspections are very lenient for these colleges. Dhruvil Joy, a medical student, took to X to allege that sanctity and integrity of medical education is totally breached by corrupt people in India.

(Edited by Neena)

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