Fact Check: Has NMC given approval to 113 Medical Colleges?

New Delhi: Media reports claiming that the National Medical Commission (NMC) has granted its approval to 113 new UG medical colleges are "misleading and baseless", the Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB) of NMC has recently clarified.

Issuing a Public Notice on 8th July 2024, NMC clarified that it only communicated its 'final decision' to those 113 applicant medical colleges, adding that "Final decision does not mean approval".

NMC's clarification comes after its previous notice dated 06.07.2024, through which it informed that final decisions of MARB in respect of 113 applications have been communicated through e-mail IDs to the Medical Institutions/Colleges concerned for information and necessary action by them within the stipulated timeline.

The Claim: 

Following the NMC notice dated 6th July 2024, several media outlets including Shiksha.com and India Today claimed that NMC has approved the establishment of 113 new undergraduate medical colleges for the academic year 2024-2025.

The media reports claimed that the NMC decision regarding the grant of approval to 113 medical colleges was announced in a public notice issued by NMC on July 6, 2024, on the official website, and the communications regarding the approvals were directly sent to the respective medical colleges via email, using the contact details provided by the medical colleges in their applications.

Referring to the list of applicant medical colleges released by NMC with its notice dated 06.07.2024, news articles claimed that the Commission granted permission for 22 new medical colleges in Uttar Pradesh, 14 new medical colleges in Maharashtra, 12 new medical colleges in Rajasthan and 11 new medical colleges in Telangana.

Fact Check: 

This Claim is Misleading

So Has NMC given approval to 113 medical colleges?

NMC has only communicated its decision to 113 medical colleges. It has not given the approval to these colleges. Hence, the media reports that are claiming that it has given its approval are misleading 

NMC has now issued a notice clarifying that such media reports are "misleading and baseless". The Commission confirmed in its notice dated 08.07.2024 that it only communicated its final decision to 113 applicant medical colleges and the final decision by NMC does not mean its approval.

The Commission addressed the news articles published based on its earlier notice dated 6th July 2024 as "fake news published/aired in Print/Electronic Media", adding that NMC's final decision "may be either approval or disapproval". 

Assuring that the decisions taken for these 113 applications will be uploaded on the NMC website in due course, the Commission added in the notice, "It is clarified that the NMC in its Public Notice dated 6 th July, 2024 has published only the list of applications against which the final decisions have been taken by the MARB.Final decision does not mean approval in respect of all 113 applications.The decision may be either approval or disapproval.Such decisions have already been communicated to the medical institutions concerned. The decisions will be uploaded on the website of NMC in due course."

NMC also requested all the stakeholders/general public to neither give attention to nor take any cognisance of any "misleading or baseless news" being published in Print/Electronic Media.

Also Read: NMC notifies its Final Decision on applications to establish 113 new medical colleges