HC raps NMC for letting 'consistent defaulter' college admit students

Has NMC 's system of aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance system for medical college faculty, digital inspections and monitoring through CCTV put a stop to the problem of medical colleges luring students through false claims? Far from it, as the case of White Medical College in Punjab's Pathankot district shows. Two batches admitted in 2021 and 2022 have just been transferred out following an order of Punjab and Haryana high court that was unsuccessfully challenged in Supreme Court.

The HC order castigated National Medical Commission (NMC) for allowing the college to admit students when the "college has been a consistent defaulter". Five inspections done by three different authorities - the university, NMC and directorate of medical education - in one and a half years found the college "highly deficient for training MBBS students". Deficiency in faculty and resident doctors was up to 90% and there was hardly any patient load, they found.

The hospital now has the dubious distinction of five batches being transferred out before they completed the course. Despite its previous record of batches admitted in 2011, 2014 and 2016 being transferred out, NMC granted permission to admit 108 students in 2021 and 150 in 2022, on the basis of the college's undertaking that it has requisite infrastructure and faculty.

"The annual declaration of the medical college, which is still available on NMC website, is full of falsehoods. How can a public authority host such unverified information on its website just on the basis of the undertaking of the very people who have been consistent defaulters?" asked parents of some students in the college who have been complaining to NMC since Dec 2022 about the lack of facilities and teaching. A rough calculation shows the college has collected over Rs 30 crore from just the latest two batches that have been shifted out.

"This case shows NMC's aadhaar based biometric attendance system, digital inspections and monitoring through CCTVs are a total failure. It is its job as the regulatory authority to do regular physical verification through surprise inspections and they ought to make the inspection reports public as the erstwhile MCI used to do. ," said the parent of a student.

The court stated "time has come for NMC to thoroughly re-look and introspect the manner in which the limited permissions or provisional recognition and affiliations are being granted". It added that a huge responsibility lies on the members of such expert bodies to ensure that medical colleges are not run like commercial establishments.