NMC focuses on re-registering 11 lakh doctors, but over 24,000 new graduates remain unregistered

The National Medical Commission (NMC) is pushing a regulation that would require approximately 11 lakh doctors to re-register, aiming to build an updated national medical registry. However, data shows that the commission has failed to register thousands of fresh medical graduates, raising questions about the accuracy and completeness of the very registry it seeks to overhaul.

According to calculations based on MBBS seats and pass rates, at least 68,000 new doctors should have registered to practice in 2025. Yet the Indian Medical Register shows just over 44,400 entries for the year. This means at least 24,000 doctors who graduated last year are missing from the national database. If foreign medical graduates who cleared the qualifying exam are included, the shortfall grows even further.

For example, in 2023, more than 10,000 foreign medical graduates passed the exam required to practice in India. After completing a mandatory one-year internship, most would have become eligible for permanent registration in 2025. Taking this into account, the total number of doctors expected to register in 2025 would be roughly 80,000, but only about 55% of that figure has been added to the national registry.

Most doctors register with their respective state medical councils. However, the NMC has not yet synchronised state registries with the national registry, as mandated under the NMC Act, 2019. The act required such integration to ensure a seamless flow of data. Nearly six years after the NMC was constituted in September 2020, this synchronisation remains incomplete. State councils that send annual updates say these entries are not being reflected on the national platform.

The Assam Medical Council provides a clear example. The state has only government-run medical colleges. The national registry lists a total of 25,722 registrations from Assam, but shows only one entry for 2025, zero for 2024 and 2023, 106 for 2022, and 353 for 2021. The state council’s own website shows 890 doctors registered in 2024. Assam had over 720 MBBS seats in 2015 and over 1,000 by 2020, so hundreds of graduates should have been added each year. The national registry’s nearly empty entries for recent years indicate a systemic failure in data sharing.

Similarly, Kerala’s data shows a gap. The national registry includes 67,142 entries from Kerala, but only seven entries for 2025 and 17 for 2024. Kerala had 3,650 MBBS seats in 2014, rising to about 4,500 by 2020. Dr Harikumaran Nair, chief of the Kerala State Medical Council, said his council has been sending details every year. He noted that the NMC, in the name of creating a new updated registry, is not updating the existing one.

The implications of this gap are significant. A national medical register is meant to serve as a verifiable database of all licensed doctors in India. Incomplete entries undermine its reliability and can create obstacles for patients, employers, and regulators. The NMC’s focus on re-registering existing doctors—many of whom are likely already in state records—does not address the more immediate problem of ensuring new doctors are properly registered and visible.

According to estimates, if the NMC had registered all doctors who entered the profession in the last five years, including foreign medical graduates, the registry would have gained over 3.5 lakh entries. That figure represents about 32% of the roughly 11 lakh doctors currently believed to be practicing in the country. This suggests that the NMC’s approach of re-registration, while perhaps useful for eliminating duplicate or outdated entries, does not compensate for its failure to include recent graduates.

The NMC has not yet explained why state registries are not being synchronised or why fresh entries are missing. The legal mandate is clear, but implementation has lagged. For the national registry to serve its intended purpose, the NMC must prioritise the integration of state databases and ensure that every new doctor is registered promptly and accurately.