National Medical Register is no more mandatory

Less than a year after it was made mandatory, the Union Health Ministry has quietly rolled back the requirement, declaring registration as voluntary.

Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare J P Nadda and MoS Anupriya Patel. (Photo | PTI)

NEW DELHI: The government’s much-publicised National Medical Register (NMR), a centralised database for modern medicine practitioners in the country, was made mandatory for registered medical practitioners to enrol themselves. But less than a year after its launch, it has failed to take off.

This paper was the first to report that the NMR portal, launched with great fanfare by Union Health Minister JP Nadda on August 23 last year, has been unsuccessful in registering modern medicine practitioners. As of April, fewer than one per cent of doctors’ enrollment applications were received, despite it being mandatory.

After multiple hurdles were encountered in the initiative to enrol doctors in the portal, the Union Health Ministry has now announced that it is voluntary.

But the announcement was made in the parliament via a written answer.

Samajwadi Party MP Aditya Yadav, who asked the question based on the story that appeared in this paper, "whether the government has taken cognizance of the fact that as of May 1, less than 1 per cent of doctors have registered with the National Medical Register (NMR) eight months after its launch in the country," the Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel said, “It is voluntary.”

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha on August 8, the minister said: “National Medical Commission (NMC) has informed that the application for issuance of National Medical Register (NMR) Identification (ID) is voluntary.”

”As per the Standing Operating Procedure (SOP), the applicant applies through the NMR portal. The application first goes to the concerned State Medical Council (SMC), where he/she were registered initially and after verification of his/her credentials, the SMC sends the application to NMC through the same portal. The application received is checked, and after verification, it is approved, and an NMR ID is generated. Further, NMC has written to all SMCS to put in extra effort to complete the NMR registration,” she said.

Speaking with this paper, RTI activist Dr K V Babu, who filed several RTIs on the issue after he ran into many hurdles to register, said, “If the reply in the Lok Sabha on Aug 8 that NMR ID is voluntary, then it is a welcome move.” 

However, the Kerala-based ophthalmologist added, "This will not absolve the NMC of the responsibility for creating a mess of the whole exercise by enrolling just 996 doctors in one year.”

The NMR is mandated under Section 31 of the NMC Act, 2019, which states that the Ethics and Medical Registration Board (EMRB) of NMC shall maintain a national register in electronic form mentioning the name, address, and all recognised qualifications possessed by a licensed medical practitioner.

As per the gazette notification of May 10, 2023, enrolling in NMR is mandatory.

At its launch, Nadda described it as a comprehensive and dynamic database for allopathic (MBBS) registered doctors in India.

The uniqueness of the NMR is that it is linked to the doctors' Aadhaar IDs, which ensures the individual’s authenticity.

Highlighting the importance of the NMR, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Prataprao Jadhav said that the NMR portal will ensure dynamic, authentic, and consolidated data on doctors in the country.

“The speedy and easy registration process on the portal will facilitate the timely updation of the data. This will lead to transparency and quality of the medical professionals and will ensure the trust of the people in the healthcare system, as they will get verified information in a transparent manner. The government is working under the vision of the Prime Minister of “Reform, Perform, and Transform”, and the launch of NMR is a step in the direction of fulfilling the government’s commitment to providing quality healthcare to the people,” he said.

However, as the NMR registration process was very complicated, only 996 doctors' applications were approved till Aug 8, out of the 11,200 who had applied, Dr Babu said, quoting an RTI reply he had received from NMC on August 8.

India has over 13 lakh registered medical practitioners (RMPs).

In the new process, doctors were asked to upload their Aadhar and submit an affidavit if their names or the state medical council's names do not match the current data. The filing of the affidavit made it cumbersome for most doctors.

The Indian Medical Association (IMA), which represents over four lakh allopathic doctors, also took up the issue with the NMC.

Dr Babu said that he had written to the then NMC Chairman Dr. B.N. Gangadhar on October 23, 2024, suggesting that once the State Medical Council verifies the registration number and degree certificates, the NMC should automatically enrol them, as was done by the erstwhile Medical Council of India (MCI) in the past.

“This can be linked to Aadhar, and NMC should withdraw the direction to upload the affidavit,” he added.