Health and HRD agree on medical education

New Delhi: A broad agreement has been reached to develop a mechanism to link the two proposed regulatory bodies - National Commission for Human Resources in Health and the National Commission for Higher Education and Research. The agreement brokered by the Prime Minister's Office will put an end to the turf war between the health and human resource development ministries.

The final details of the proposed linkage mechanism will be worked out at the next meeting of the health ministry's expert group and the HRD ministry's taskforce on February 15. This could mean that both bills could now be finalised for introduction in the budget session of Parliament.

Both bodies, the National Commission for Human Resources in Health ( NCHRH) piloted by the health ministry and the National Commission For Higher Education and Research (NCHER) piloted by the HRD ministry, were announced in the President's address. HRD-appointed taskforce to draw up the framework for the NCHER made the argument that medical education and the sanctioning of medical colleges should be brought under its ambit.

Matters came to a head after indications by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the overarching regulator suggested by the HRD ministry's taskforce, NCHER, was conceptually a better framework. Even so, the prime minister is understood to have stressed the need to consult other stakeholders before a final view is taken.


With the health ministry not agreeing to give up medical education, arguing that it was linked to the provision of health services, the prime Minister's Office stepped in to find a workable solution. The understanding that has been arrived at is to ensure a synergy between the two bodies. In order to avoid duplication, it has been suggested that health and higher education experts be included in both regulatory bodies. The draft NCHRH bill provides for the inclusion of the NCHER chairperson in its board.

The draft NCHER bill has a provision for setting up expert advisory groups in specific areas and Board for Research Promotion and Innovation that would, among other things, formulate new, topical, trans-disciplinary research and innovation initiatives, and develop research linkages between industry, national laboratories/research institutes and universities. Last Friday, at a meeting chaired by principal secretary to the PM TKA Nair, it was decided to synchronise the two regulatory bodies.