Make Medical College Assessment Reports Public- Health Ministry asks NMC to Take Necessary Action, Provide Report
New Delhi: The Union Health Ministry recently directed the National Medical Commission (NMC) to submit a compliance report regarding the order issued by the Central Information Commission (CIC) suggesting the Apex medical commission to make medical college assessment reports public.
Directions in this regard have been issued by the Under Secretary to the Government of India after the Union Health Ministry received three letters from Dr. Mohamed Khader Meeran, along with a copy of the CIC order.
Referring to this, the Health Ministry wrote to the NMC Secretary on June 22, 2023, and mentioned in a letter, "I am directed to forward herewith a copy of email dated 01.06.2023, three letters all dated 30.05.2023 alongwith a copy of CIC's order received from Dr. Mohamed Khader Meeran, A.S. on the subject mentioned above."
Directing NMC to take required action and submit a compliance report in respect of the CIC order, the letter further stated, "In this regard, you are requested to look into the matter and take further necessary action, under intimation to this Ministry and to the concerned as well. A Compliance Report on the above mentioned CIC order may also be sent to this Ministry."
Although MCI started making college assessment reports public, the erstwhile apex medical body was later replaced by the National Medical Commission (NMC) with the implementation of the NMC Act, 2019.
With NMC taking charge back in September 2020, its website was also replaced by the MCI website in the new domain. Along with this, the data and other documents uploaded by MCI including the college assessment reports of the previous academic year were also removed from the MCI website.
Since NMC stopped uploading the reports for the current academic years on its website, a doctor approached the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) seeking the information in this regard and it was denied by NMC.
Also Read: Make all medical college assessment reports public: CIC tells NMC
Medical Dialogues had last year reported that filing the RTI application when Dr. Mohammed Khader Meeran had approached and sought the medical college assessment reports for the academic year 2020-2021 and 2021-2022, it was denied by NMC on the ground that "the information sought is very voluminous and scattered in various files. It would disproportionately divert the resource of MARB of NMC."
Dissatisfied with the information furnished, the complainant approached CIC and filed a complaint and argued that the concerned assessment reports are public documents under Section 4 (1) (b) of Right to Information Act and it is supposed to be pro-actively disclosed by CPIO of NMC.
Further, the complainant had pointed out that these assessment reports have huge public importance, because disclosing these reports are the only way through which, standards of each medical college and hospital, additional facilities could be known to the aspiring medical students.
Referring to the earlier order of CIC asking erstwhile MCI to disclose the assessment reports of the medical colleges, the complainant had further argued that NMC being the legal successor of MCI is liable to disclose the assessment reports as the CIC order to MCI is binding to NMC's CPIO.
While considering the complaint, earlier this year the CIC advised the NMC to upload the medical college assessment reports for the current academic year on the NMC website.
Despite the CIC's advise to NMC for uploading the medical college assessment reports on its website, the Commission is yet to disclose these reports in the public domain.
Dr. Mohammed Khader Meeran, who had earlier filed the RTI and approached the CIC seeking a direction upon NMC to make the assessment reports public also wrote to the Prime Minister of India, the Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, the chairman of NMC and other authorities raising his grievances in this regard.
What do new NMC Rules Say?
Section 25 of the “Establishment of Medical institutions, Assessment & Rating Regulations, 2023", which was recently published in the Gazette of India on June 02, 2023 mentions-
"Publication of rating – the MARB shall make available on its website or otherwise in the public domain the latest annual assessment results and ratings of medical colleges or medical institutions, in such a manner as to facilitate public understanding and consumption."
These new rules suggest that NMC will only publish the "latest annual assessment results and ratings of medical colleges" replacing the previous practice of erstwhile MCI of uploading assessment reports of every medical college. Further, according to the newly implemented rules, only the "latest" annual assessment results will be available in the public domain, whereas all assessment reports over the years for a specific medical institute used to be available on the website of erstwhile MCI.
Also Read:Why Can't Medical College Reports be Made Public? Transparency Woes Plague NMC
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