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Medical colleges may soon be allowed to run as “for-profit” institutions, if the recommendations of a committee on reform of the Medical Council Act are taken into consideration.
The preliminary report of the committee, headed by Arvind Panagariya, Vice-Chairman of the NITI Aayog, suggests that the gap in the need for medical colleges and the fact that private colleges anyway charge high fees – provide grounds for re-evaluation of the existing rules under which only “not-for-profit” institutions are allowed. The committee also includes the draft of ‘The National Medical Commission Bill, 2016’, intended to replace the existing Indian Medical Council Act.
In India, educational institutes can only be set up under a registered not-for-profit society or trust, and even foreign entities are prohibited from investing in societies and trusts under existing FDI rules.
“Given the shortage of providers and in recognition of the fact that the current ban on for-profit institutions has hardly prevented private institutions from extracting profits, albeit through non-transparent and possibly illegal means, it was felt that any restriction on the class of education providers would be counter-productive,” the Panagariya Committee said. “The Committee recommends de-linking the condition for affiliation/recognition from the nature of the promoter of the medical college (such as trust, not-for-profit company). However, this relaxation will have to be provisioned via rules to be framed under the proposed NMC Act,” it added. The committee has further recommended that fees for private medical colleges should not be regulated as it could encourage corruption within the National Medical Commission, which is proposed to replace the Indian Medical Council that currently regulates medical education.
However, the report acknowledges concerns over high medical education costs, raised by the Ranjit Roy Choudhury Committee and the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare, which had earlier examined the issue. Thus, it suggests that 40 per cent of seats in private institutions be regulated to make space for students from economically poorer backgrounds, and students entering private colleges under the State quota.
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