The National Medical Commission (NMC), the sole regulatory body monitoring medical education and medical professionals across states and Union Territories (UTs), plans for ways to streamline the medical counselling process in the country to make it more stakeholder-friendly and ensure no seats go vacant.

The commission, headed by its chairman Dr BN Gangadhar, organized a meeting in Delhi on Wednesday to discuss how to enhance the medical education counselling process at a national level. Dr Atul Goel, director general health services under the health ministry, was also present in the programme. The prime consideration of the NMC is to raise standards of medical education in the country through proper and smooth counseling process among medical students, doctors and other medical professionals.

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Over the last few years, the counselling process has been affected by repeated delays owing to the Covid-19 pandemic ravaging the country and litigations pertaining to the EWS quota. There has also been criticism of the government’s recent move of doing away with a qualifying percentile for postgraduate (PG) seats.

This has resulted in seats being allocated to people scoring as low as five out of 800. As per the government, the move was to ensure that no seats for further specialised training of doctors go vacant. The NMC sources felt that the commission’s initiative on the counselling process “will help (it) understand the reasons behind seats remaining vacant and what can be solutions to address it.”

The Medical Counselling Commission under the NMC conducts counselling for undergraduate, PG, and super-speciality medical seats. “Our mission at NMC is to raise the standard of medical education in India and a transparent and smooth counselling process adds to that goal,” said NMC chairman Dr Gangadhar at the meeting.