Health Ministry finalises the names of NMC members
The Union Health Ministry has finalised the 25 members of the National Medical Commission. The members have been selected through a draw of lots from the nominations sent by the State Governments, Union territories and State medical councils.
Once the NMC starts operating, the MCI will automatically get dissolved and the nearly 63-year-old Indian Medical Council Act will stand abolished. “Today, 25 part-time members, including 10 vice-chancellors (VCs) from different states, nine representatives from the state medical councils (SMCs) and four members for the four autonomous boards, were selected,” Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said.
“We have nine months to select the members of the NMC and within a short span of two months, we have framed the rules, notified those and also carried out the process of selection of the part-time members. To ensure probity and integrity of the highest order, a compact body is being selected through a transparent mechanism and representation of the states and state councils in rotation. This will facilitate faster decision making also,” he added.
The four boards to be set up under the NMC Act are the Under-Graduate Medical Education Board (UGMEB), the Post-Graduate Medical Education Board (PGMEB), the Medical Assessment and Rating Board and the Ethics and Medical Registration Board.
The selected members include Professor Rajendra Pandey, VC of the West Bengal University of Health Sciences, Himanshu A Pandya, VC of the Gujarat University, Professor Mahesh Verma, VC of the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University in Delhi, Rajababu Panwar, VC of the Rajasthan University of Health Sciences and Raj Bahadur, VC of the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences in Punjab’s Faridkot among others.
Ajay Kumar Khanna from the Uttarakhand Medical Council was selected for the Search Committee from amongst the nine part-time members of the NMC. Other NMC members include a senior officer of the rank of additional secretary, AIIMS director Randeep Guleria and two directors from the PGIMER, Chandigarh and the Tata Memorial Hospital.
The exercise of selecting the 25 members took place in the presence of media persons, who participated in the entire process, which was video-graphed.
Source: The Pioneer.