MCI gets new chieftian

Updated on: Monday, May 16, 2011

The Board of Governors, which had taken over regulatory responsibilities of Medical Council of India (MCI) last year, was reconstituted with eminent medic K K Talwar being nominated as the new chairperson and four fresh members inducted in the panel.

Talwar, a former director of Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh will replace Dr S K Sarin as the head of the board, an official of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.

The ministry has also nominated four doctors as members of the board. They are Prof K S Sharma, Prof Harbhajan Singh Rassam, Dr Rajiv Chintaman Yeravdekar and Dr Purushotham Lal.

The current board, the tenure of which expires tomorrow, had one chairperson and five members Ranjit Roy Chaudhury, Sita Naik, Devi Shetty, Ravinder Nath Salhan and Gautam Sen.

The government had recently brought out a gazette notification extending the tenure of MCI Board from one year since supersession of MCI to two years.

The government had decided to bring in an ordinance to replace the MCI with the board after a crisis hit the regulatory body when its president Ketan Desai was arrested on April 22 last year by the CBI for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs two crore to recognise a medical college in Punjab even though it did not meet the MCI standards.

The MCI, a statutory body, tasked to oversee the standards of medical education in India, grants recognition to medical degrees, gives accreditation to medical colleges, registers medical practitioners and monitors medical practice in the country.

In the aftermath of Desai's resignation and setting up of the board, the government had amended the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956, to insert an Article 3 (a) through an ordinance that authorised the government to intervene in matters of "national policy".

Earlier, the present board had reported differences with the ministry on some issues, including conducting a National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET).

Among the other new members Sharma is Professor and Head, Department of Anaesthesiology, Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai while Rassam is Director Clinical Cardiac Sciences and Senior Interventional Cardiologist, Max Heart and Vascular Institute, Delhi. Yeravdekar is Dean, Faculty of Health Sciences, Symbiosis International University, Pune and Lal is Director Interventional Cardiology, Chairman, Metro Group of Hospitals.

MCI gets new chieftian

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