NEW DELHI: The National Medical Commission (NMC) has remained silent on the action taken over the past three years against medical colleges for allegedly flouting regulations on stipends for interns and postgraduate students, a series of RTI replies have revealed.
This comes despite the Supreme Court pulling up the NMC over delays in furnishing a reply on a plea alleging that 70 per cent of medical colleges in the country do not pay stipends to MBBS interns.
What is notable is that, while the NMC has periodically issued public notices announcing action against erring medical colleges on the stipend issue, it has failed to share details when sought through RTI applications or by the apex court.
A series of RTI applications filed by Kerala-based RTI activist Dr K V Babu on the stipend issue have received evasive replies from the NMC regarding action taken against medical colleges, both government and private, for allegedly violating the Maintenance of Standards of Medical Education Regulations (MSMER), 2023.
The NMC is mandated to take action against medical colleges for violations of the MSMER, 2023, which clearly state that if any regulation, including non-payment of stipends to interns and postgraduate students, is breached, several measures can be taken against the institution. These include closure or the imposition of heavy fines.
Speaking with this newspaper, Dr Babu said, “When the documents are sought under the RTI Act, the NMC is evasive. I had been repeatedly saying the NMC is for the 'ease of doing business' of medical college management and never for paying legitimate stipends to interns & PGs.”
“Though MSMER 2023 was gazetted in September 2023, there is not even a single instance of any action taken against erring medical colleges in the public domain,” he said.
The Kerala-based ophthalmologist, in an RTI application, sought information on action taken by the Boards/NMC against medical colleges for non-compliance with MSMER, 2023, from September 19, 2023, to date. However, the Commission replied on April 7, stating that the “information is not available in compiled form”.
Not satisfied with the response, Dr Babu, who has been pursuing the stipend issue for several years, filed an appeal. In its May 13 reply, the NMC again did not share the details sought and instead referred him to two earlier notices relating to action against erring medical colleges.
The NMC also failed to provide details of medical colleges that had paid stipends to postgraduate students but later allegedly withdrew them.
In its 2023 survey, the NMC shared data on 7,901 postgraduate students from 213 self-financed or private medical colleges across 19 states.
The survey found that 16 per cent of postgraduate students had to return their stipend to the college management.
However, the Commission has never identified these private medical colleges despite several RTI applications seeking the information.
“In 2023, the NMC refused to disclose the names of the medical colleges which took back the PG stipend. When asked again, the NMC CPIO says the records are not available in compiled form. However, they are simultaneously highlighting the so-called penalty of Rs 1 crore imposed on seven medical colleges for failing to submit the details in March. But they refuse to share more when details are sought,” Dr Babu said.