Govt won't issue NORI to doctors to check brain drain: Health Minister JP Nadda

NEW DELHI: To tackle brain drain of doctors, the government has decided not to issue 'No Obligation to Return to India' certificate to doctors in any circumstances, except to those who are over 65 years of the age.

Health Minister J P Nadda today informed Rajya Sabha that the Ministry has revised its guidelines to tackle large scale immigration of Indian doctors to foreign shores.

"As per the revised guidelines of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 'No Obligation to Return to India (NORI)' certificate will not be issued in any circumstance, except for those who are above 65 years of age," He said.

Nadda was replying to a question whether the country was witnessing a huge brain drain of doctors that directly affect the health sector and whether the government has taken stringent action to stop this.

"During 2010-2014, a total number of 3,947 Statement of Need (SON) Certificates and Exceptional Need Certificates (ENC) were issued by the Health Ministry to Indian doctors to enable them to pursue higher medical studies in the United States of America (USA)," he said.

The government has taken measures to improve the working conditions of the doctors including "considerable" enhancement of pay and allowances of doctors after implementation of the 6th Central Pay Commission, Nadda said.

The other measures include amendment of MCI regulations to provide the age of superannuation for doctors in teaching cadre can go up to 70 years, revision of Assured Career Progression Scheme for faculty of central government institutions to make it more beneficial.

Nadda said that various allowances available to the faculty like Non-Practising Allowance, Conveyance Allowance, Learning Resource Allowance and others have been also been enhanced considerably.