New Delhi: The National Medical Register (NMR) was launched to create a central database of all registered medical practitioners in the country, but the effort seems to have failed. The Government has now said that enrollment to the NMR is voluntary.
When the NMR was launched on August 23 last year, the Government has made enrollment mandatory. However, less than one percent doctors in the country registered till April 2025.
After the poor response was reported by The New Indian Express, Samajwadi Party MP Aditya Yadav, raised a question in Parliament.
“Whether the government has taken cognizance of the fact that as of May 1, less than 1 per cent of doctors have registered with the National Medical Register (NMR) eight months after its launch in the country,” he asked.
In her written reply in the Lok Sabha, the Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel said: “National Medical Commission (NMC) has informed that the application for issuance of National Medical Register (NMR) Identification (ID) is voluntary.”
“As per the Standing Operating Procedure (SOP), the applicant applies through the NMR portal. The application first goes to the concerned State Medical Council (SMC), where he/she were registered initially and after verification of his/her credentials, the SMC sends the application to NMC through the same portal. The application received is checked, and after verification, it is approved, and an NMR ID is generated. Further, NMC has written to all SMCS to put in extra effort to complete the NMR registration,” she added.
Speaking with the newspaper RTI activist Dr K V Babu, who filed several RTIs on the issue after he ran into many hurdles to register, said, “If the reply in the Lok Sabha that NMR ID is voluntary, then it is a welcome move.”
“However, this will not absolve the NMC of the responsibility for creating a mess of the whole exercise by enrolling just 996 doctors in one year,” the Kerala-based opthalmologist said.
The NMR is mandated under Section 31 of the NMC Act, 2019, which states that the Ethics and Medical Registration Board (EMRB) of NMC shall maintain a national register in electronic form mentioning the name, address, and all recognised qualifications possessed by a licensed medical practitioner.
As per the gazette notification of May 10, 2023, enrolling in NMR is mandatory. The uniqueness of the NMR is that it is linked to the doctors’ Aadhaar IDs, which ensures the individual’s authenticity.
However, as the NMR registration process was very complicated, only 996 doctors’ applications were approved till Aug 8, out of the 11,200 who had applied, Dr Babu said, quoting an RTI reply he had received from NMC.
India has over 13 lakh registered medical practitioners (RMPs).
In the new process, doctors were asked to upload their Aadhar and submit an affidavit if their names or the state medical council’s names do not match the current data. The filing of the affidavit made it cumbersome for most doctors.
The Indian Medical Association (IMA), which represents over four lakh allopathic doctors, also took up the issue with the NMC.
Dr Babu said that he had written to the then NMC Chairman Dr. B.N. Gangadhar on October 23, 2024, suggesting that once the State Medical Council verifies the registration number and degree certificates, the NMC should automatically enrol them, as was done by the erstwhile Medical Council of India (MCI) in the past.
“This can be linked to Aadhar, and NMC should withdraw the direction to upload the affidavit,” he added.