President Ram Nath Kovind signed an ordinance on Wednesday (26 September) to set up a committee to run the Medical Council of India (MCI), India Today has reported. This arrangement will continue till the parliament passes the bill to replace the body with a new commission, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.

The ordinance was cleared in a Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi this morning (26 September), Jaitley said.

Since term of the MCI's elected body is ending soon, Jaitley said, a need was felt for it to be run by a committee of eminent individuals. The Board of Governors includes Niti Aayog member Dr V K Paul and AIIMS Director Randeep Gul.

National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill 2017 to replace the Council with a National Medical Commission is pending in Parliament.

Former Niti Aayog Chairman Professor Arvind Panagariya, who advocated the overhaul of regulatory architecture in medic education, welcome the move.

The proposed National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill 2017 seeks to radically overhaul the current structure and organisation of the MCI. The MCI, which is a self-regulating body and is run by doctors, has been accused of being thoroughly corrupt and inept.

The bill also seeks to dissolve MCI and form a new regulatory body NMC plus four verticals dealing with curriculum, assessment-cum-rating and registration. NMC will consist of four separate regulatory boards:

• UGMEB: Undergraduate Medical Education Board for regulating the entrance (NEET) and exit examination.
• PGMEB: Postgraduate Medical Education Regulation Board for postgraduate entrance and exit test.
• MARB: Medical Assessment and Rating Board for medical educational institutions
• BMR: Board for Medical Registration.

This unbundling will help place emphasis on expertise.