Decoding NMC's DigiLocker and its impact on Medicos

New Delhi: The National Medical Commission (NMC) has recently asked the medical institutes in the country to upload their 10-years academic certificate data using the Digi Locker- National Academic Depository (NAD) facility.

Although this facility under the Digital India initiative of the Union Government had been introduced back in February 2015, it has now been extended to the Medical Education sector in India. 

It is expected that this newly introduced digital repository system will minimise the use of physical documents, reduce administrative expenses and also provide authenticity of the e-documents.

For the medical education sector, Digi Locker is expected to help identify the quacks by minimalizing the fraudulent activities including the forgery of mark sheet.

What is Digi Locker? 

Digi Locker is a digital repository for students to access all their academic awards at ease. Developed by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) under its Digital India initiative, the National Academic Depository (NAD) Digi Locker can be used by the medical students and doctors to get access to their educational documents/certificate in digital format directly from their original issuers.

Therefore, DigiLocker NAD platform is a 24X7 online storehouse for all academic awards, including the certificates, diplomas, degrees, mark sheets etc. that have been officially digitized and registered by academic institutions/boards/eligibility assessment bodies. 

Using this platform, the academic institutes including the medical colleges/universities can upload the award data to the site and after registering to the site, students can get access to their certificates and documents through their individual DigiLocker account. This facility enables simple access to and retrieval of an academic award and confirms and assures its validity and secure preservation.

While the beta version of the service had been introduced back in February 2015 and was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 1, 2015, its services have been extended to the medical colleges recently.

Medical Dialogues had recently reported that the NMC directed the medical institutes in the country to upload their 10-years academic certificate data using the Digi Locker facility.

The NMC notice in this regard stated, "I am directed to refer to D.O. No. NeGD/05/01/ 2020 dated 6.9.2020 (copy enclosed) received from Shri Abhishek Singh, President & CEO, National e-Governance Division, Ministry of Electronics 86 Information Technology on the above mentioned subject, which is self explanatory."

"It is requested to all Medical Institutions to comply with the instructions contained in the said D.O. letter and to register and upload their 10-years academic certificate data (Degree, Marksheet, Admit Card, Score Card etc.) through Digi Locker-NAD  at the earliest," the notice issued by NMC Secretary Dr. Sandhya Bhullar further added.

The medical colleges can register to this facility by logging in  and the medical students and doctors need to use the same website for accessing their documents. Creating a Digi Locker is account is mandatory for operating the National Academic Depository.

Impact of Digi Locker on Medical Education: 

Implementation of Digi Locker facility is a huge step in the Medical Education sector since it aims to enable simple access to and retrieval of an academic award, confirm its validity and secure preservation using online medium. 

It is intended to minimise the usage of physical documents and digitalize the medical education system. Further it is expected to reduce administrative expenses and provide authenticity of the e-documents. Therefore, using this facility the doctors can get access to their government-issued documents and academic certificates at anytime and from anywhere.

The medical students and doctors can avail the following benefits by using the Digi Locker facility. 

(1) Globally recognized and acceptable awards

(2) An online, permanent record of academic awards

(3) Easily sharable and verifiable to anybody

(4) No risk of losing, spoiling, and damaging academic awards

Digi Locker facility to identify Quacks: 

The digitalization of medical records is also expected to significantly minimize the fraudulent activities such as certificate forgery and mark-sheet forgery by allowing online verification of the same.

As per the data available through the website of Indian Medical Association (IMA), the number of quacks are increasing in the country and currently about 10 lakh quacks are allegedly practicing allopathic medicine in India.

Since the Digi Locker facility also provides an option of online verification facility of the documents of the medical students, the instances of forging mark-sheet are expected to get reduced.

Referring to the Digi Locker system, the National e-Governance Division on September 6, 2022 had mentioned that "DigiLocker is one of the key Building Blocks under India Stack comprising of Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLoCker and eConsent Framework. DigiLocker is not only a vault for documents that citizens can access but also provides for consent based verification for third parties." The facility hosts around 560 crore documents from 2205 government and private organization.