Only 8,598 out of 13 Lakh Doctors Applied to Register in NMR- RTI Reveals Shocking Data

New Delhi: Almost five months have passed since the National Medical Commission (NMC) initiated the process of doctors' registration on the newly launched National Medical Register (NMR).

However, while responding to the Right to Information (RTI) application filed by Health Activist Dr KV Babu, NMC has revealed that till January 14, 2025, only 8598 applications have been filed by Registered Medical Practitioners to enrol them in the NMR.

Apart from this, the Apex Medical Commission also informed that till now altogether 8318 applications have not been approved and 02 applications in total have been rejected.

Therefore, considering that there are more than 13 lakh doctors are present in India, less than 9,000 i.e. barely 3% allopathic doctors have registered themselves on the NMR till now.

NMR is a dynamic database and will be a central repository of all registered doctors, in which their authenticity is verified by Aadhaar IDs. All the MBBS doctors who are registered on Indian Medical Register (IMR) have to register again on the NMR, the NMC said in a public notice recently, and added that all medical colleges/institutions, state medical councils (SMCs) are inter-linked on the portal.

Also Read: Only 284 Doctors in NMR- Is National Medical Register becoming a failure?

Launching the NMR portal on 23.08.2024, the Apex Medical Commission has asked the registered medical practitioners to enter their details on the portal. The portal was envisioned as a transformative initiative to centralize and streamline the registration of doctors across India. 

However, after the commencement of the registration process, doctors started complaining about the problems that they faced while trying to register themselves on this new centralized portal. 

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that previously, Dr. Babu.KV had filed an RTI, which revealed back on December 13, 2024 that only 284 doctors' names were included in the NMR, while 6,198 applications were not approved, and two were rejected outright. 

He had also explained how the doctors had to wait for a long period of time to get NMR registration despite getting approval from the concerned State Medical Councils. 

Dr. Babu had earlier informed the Medical Dialogues team that after receiving the approval for his application from the Kerala State Medical Council, his registration was sent to the NMC. However, according to the doctor, over 110 days, it was returned four times with irrelevant queries. These included objections regarding the names of his university and state medical council, as well as discrepancies between the name on his Aadhaar card and his degree certificate.

While in December, 2024, the RTI reply had revealed that only 284 doctors' names were included in NMR, the latest RTI reply by the Commission has revealed the unwillingness on the part of the doctors to apply for the NMR registration as well. Less than 9,000 out of 13 lakh doctors have applied for NMR registration till January 14, 2025.

Earlier, raising the problems faced by the doctors while trying to register on NMR, the doctor had written to NMC Chairperson and criticized the requirement by NMC to submit an affidavit to support the difference in name, necessity of approaching the SMCs for the name changes of various medical colleges/universities/SMCs etc.

Back then, he had suggested to the Commission that NMC automatically enrols the doctors once the registration number and degree certificates were verified by the SMC. "This can be linked to AADHAR . NMC should withdraw the direction to upload the affidavit Now the EMRB is making registration with the NMR messy & hope they will make it simpler so that the process will be completed in near future," he had mentioned. 

Also Read: NMC urges State Medical Councils to verify FMGs medical degrees for NMR registration