Skip to main content

Cabinet okays Bill to replace Medical Council of India

Image
By
Cabinet okays Bill to replace Medical Council of India
The Union cabinet has approved a bill to replace the much criticised medical education regulator Medical Council of India (MCI) with a new commission to ensure transparency and reform.The National Medical Council Bill, 2016 will be tabled in Parliament in the current session, law and justice minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a briefing shortly after the cabinet meeting on Friday
The draft bill, proposed by a fou rmember Niti Aayog committee in 2016, was modified by a Group of Ministers (GoM) constituted to relook it in July 2017. It has been awaiting approval for some three months. MCI has long been criticised for rampant corruption and a lack of accountability which, according to a parliamentary standing committee report on health last year, would lead to great social, financial and political cost if unchecked. "The MCI as the regulator of medical education in the country has repeatedly failed on all its mandates over the decades," it had said.
The National Medical Council Bill provides for a 25-member National Medial Commission (NMC) to regulate medical education in the country, with four separate boards overseeing functions like undergraduate and postgraduate courses, registration and ethics enforcement in the profession. Compared to MCI —  a primarily elected body with nominees from the state or centre —NMC will have a "hybrid structure" with a few non-medical members and primacy for selected members, a senior government official said.
At least 16 and up to 22 of its members would be medical professionals and all selected members would be finalised by a search committee chaired by the cabinet secretary, the official told ET.The bill also envisages a government-constituted 64-member Medical Advisory Council, which would act as the primary platform for states to give views and raise concerns related to medical education.
NMC has been empowered to frame guidelines to determine the fees for up to 40% of the seats in private colleges and deemed universities, said the official. This would give all "meritorious" students access to medical seats irrespective of financial status, the person said. MCI did not have any power to prescribe fees.
The bill, which would replace the Medical Council Act of 1956, is expected to end "heavy handed" regulatory control over medical education institutions and would signal a shift towards outcome-based monitoring, said the official.
Monetary penalty under the NMC is defined as up to 10 times the annual tuition fee, whereas MCI would refuse renewal permission and admission in case institutions did not meet requirements. NMC also cuts down on the number of permissions needed to start and recognise undergraduate and post graduate courses.
The bill also expects to open up the medical education sector, leading to significant addition in the number of undergraduate and postgraduate seats and enable "substantial" new investment in the infrastructure sector, the official said.
The  Economic Times, New Delhi, 16th December 2017

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shrinking footprints of foreign banks in India

By
Shrinking footprints of foreign banks in India Foreign banks are increasingly shrinking their presence in India and are also becoming more conservative than private and public sector counterparts. While many of them have sold some of their businesses in India as part of their global strategy, some are trying to keep their core expertise intact. Others are branching out to newer areas to continue business momentum.For example, HSBC and Barclays Bank in India have got out of the retail business, whereas corporate-focused Standard Chartered Bank is now trying to increase its focus on retail “Building a retail franchise is a huge exercise and takes a long time. You cannot afford to lose it,” said Shashank Joshi, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ’s India head.According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, foreign banks’ combined loan book shrunk nearly 10 per cent from Rs 3.78 trillion in fiscal 2015-16 to Rs 3.42 trillion last financial year. The banking industry, which includes foreign banks…
Post a Comment
Read more

RBI rushes in to prop up falling rupee

By
RBI rushes in to prop up falling rupee India’s central bank reportedly intervened in the currency markets on Monday to prevent a further slide in the local unit, which breached the 67 mark to a dollar for the first time in 15 months amid a widening trade gap and runaway import bills fuelled by high crude-oil prices. Some state-owned banks were seen selling dollars aggressively, interventions that market dealers attributed to the central bank’s strategy to stem the decline of the Indian rupee against the US currency. The rupee is the worst performing among a dozen Asian monetary units in the past three months. It lost 4.25 per cent to the dollar during the period, show data from Bloomberg. On Monday, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is said to have sold about Rs 800 million collectively on the spot and exchange traded futures markets, dealers said. An email sent to RBI remained unanswered until the publication of this report. The currency market has seen such a strong central bank interven…
Post a Comment
Read more

GST Refund of Rs 20,000 Cr Pending: Exporters’ Body

By
GST Refund of Rs  20,000 Cr Pending: Exporters’ Body Refund of over Rs 20,000 crore on account of Goods and Services Tax (GST) is pending with the government with more than half the amount stuck as input tax credit, Federation of Indian Export Organisations said on Tuesday. While claims over Rs7,000 crore were cleared in March, the amount was Rs 1,000 crore in April.However, after exporters’ request, the GST council and tax department are organizing a second phase of Special Refund Fortnight starting May 31, which will enable exporters to draw their refunds at a speedy pace. Many exporters have been unable to file the refund of input tax credit due to technical glitches, exports and claim happened in different months. The major challenge lies on ITC refund especially because the process is partly electronic and partly manual which is cumbersome and add to the transaction cost, the exporters’ body said. On IGST, refunds are getting delayed due to airline and shipping companies not submitt…
1 comment
Read more