Doctors question the need to register again for National Medical Register

The National Medical Commission’s plan to create a National Medical Register (NMR), is running into rough weather again as doctors are questioning why medical practitioners are being made to pay a fee and register again for entry into the NMR when their database is already available with respective State Medical Councils.

The question assumes significance as the Ethics and Medical Registration Board (EMRB) of the National Medical Commission (NMC) is moving to amend the Registration of Medical Practitioners and Licence to Practice Medicine Regulations, 2026.

The NMR is envisaged as a single, reliable national database that would make it easier to verify doctors’ qualifications and registration status and facilitate their practice across State boundaries. The system envisages a unique NMR identification number linked to every doctor’s State registration number.

The dispute now is over how this national database would be created -- is it the task of the State Medical Councils to provide the data for the creation of the NMR or should individual doctors have to put in application afresh, pay a fee and then await EMRB’s verification of credentials?

Doctors point out that the NMC Act, 2019, already settles this. In Sections 31(1) , 31 (6) and 31 (7), the NMC Act says that the EMRB “shall maintain a National Register” of all licensed medical practitioners.; the State Medical Councils will maintain and update respective State Registers with the EMRB and that it will be the task of EMRB to maintain the National Register and ensure the electronic synchronisation with the State Registers.

“Nowhere in the NMC Act is it stated that it is the responsibility of registered medical practitioners to apply for NMR registration,” points out the Kannur-based doctor and RTI activist, K.V. Babu. Also, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha on August 5, 2025, the Union Health Ministry, quoting the NMC, had said that applying for NMR registration was voluntary.

Doctors therefore argue that the NMR should be populated from the verified data already held by State Medical Councils. “Our data is already with the State Medical Council and it just needs to be handed over to the EMRB.

We fail to understand why the NMR database creation should be so complicated and why doctors are being put through the registration and verification formalities all over again,” says the State President of Indian Medical Association, Kerala, M.N.

Menon The concern raised by doctors is genuine. Applications submitted by several doctors for NMR registration have remained pending before the EMRB for years, raising questions about the practicality of requiring every State-registered doctor to individually apply for national registration.

According to the minutes of the NMC’s 17th meeting, fewer than 32,000 registered medical practitioners had applied for NMR registration by December 2025. The issue also has a financial dimension. Doctors point out that they are already paying a substantial amount as registration and licensing-related charges to State Medical Councils.

The registration fee that will be charged in the name of NMR will be another burden on doctors, Dr. Babu says. Doctors have demanded that the NMC withdraw the proposed draft amendment and ask State Medical Councils to send its database to the EMRB for creating the NMR as well as the unique ID for doctors