New NMC chief vows to boost regulatory mechanism amid graft charges in medical college inspections

New Delhi, Aug 18 (PTI) Against the backdrop of allegations of corruption in the inspection of medical colleges, newly appointed National Medical Commission (NMC) chief Dr Abhijat Sheth said the apex body would conduct a root cause analysis of the assessment system to weed out any probable shortcomings and strengthen the regulatory mechanism to prevent such lapses in future.

In an exclusive interview with PTI, Dr Sheth acknowledged that such allegations are a serious concern for the NMC, and he, along with his team, reviewed the overall processes and the problems immediately after joining the Commission as its chief.

Dr Sheth, who also heads the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS), was appointed as chairperson of the NMC in July. He took charge on August 5.

In July, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) busted a network of officials of the Union Health Ministry, NMC, intermediaries and representatives of private medical colleges allegedly involved in a litany of "egregious" acts, including corruption and unlawful manipulation of the regulatory framework governing medical colleges.

The agency has named 34 people in an FIR, including eight Health Ministry officials, a National Health Authority official and five doctors who were part of the NMC inspection team. Dr B N Gangadhar was the NMC chairperson then.

In an immediate response to the FIR, the Commission initiated action, blacklisting four assessors and stopping the renewal of the existing undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) seats in six medical colleges.

Dr Gangadhar resigned last October, citing health reasons. However, he continued to work in the position as his resignation was not accepted for want of a suitable candidate for the post.

In his interview with PTI, Dr Sheth pointed out that the allegations of bribery were against a handful of staffers and officials, and considering the pan-India operations of the NMC, it would be unfair to put the whole organisation in the dock.

"We take this as a serious concern and NMC has already adopted a zero tolerance policy against corruption, and they have taken immediate steps to regulate the people and institutions which are alleged in this issue, and appropriate action has been taken against them," Dr Sheth said.

On how the assessment process can be improved, Dr Sheth said even before he joined, the NMC had already introduced some of the systems to do away with the physical dependency of inspection, which include institutionalisation of self assessment reports, deployment of central control and command centre for NMC inspections via CCTV surveillance and Aadhaar Enabled Bio-metric Attendance System (AEBAS) to monitor the faculty and the hospital staff.

The NMC Act provides enough provisions to ensure that any deviation from the standard of practice will be taken seriously and appropriate regulatory or penal action will be taken to ensure that maximum compliance has been achieved, he said.

"What we are going to do now, after my joining with our team is going to have a detailed root cause analysis of the problem, and based on the problem, we will find out shortcomings, any area for the improvements, and at the same time, we will ensure that one -- the regulatory mechanism has to be strengthened based on our root cause analysis, and also we need to take adequate steps to ensure the further prevention of such alleged incidences," he said.

Regarding how the NMC will operate with the posts of presidents and members on various Boards like the UG Medical Education Board and Ethics and Medical Registration Board being still vacant, Dr Sheth said, "As far as I know, the posts of president of the UG Board and Ethics and Medical Registration Board are vacant. Also, the posts of members and part-time members are vacant. Filling of these posts is in process." "Until then, we have the president of the Post-Graduate Medical Education Board, Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB) and myself, as well as a very strong admin team in place. Since these responsibilities have been entrusted to me, we will ensure that the operations do not suffer and the necessary reforms are initiated. We are expecting that all other posts will be filled up and the processes will get streamlined in the next couple of months," he added. PTI PLB KSS KSS