Medical colleges, which save crores each year by not paying MBBS interns any stipend or paying a stipend much lower than what govt colleges in the state pay, have been threatened with a penalty of Rs 50,000 by National Medical Commission. NMC issued a public notice on Friday about the penalty for not submitting details of stipend paid to MBBS interns. According to the notice, the commission had issued four public notices in Nov and Dec last year asking medical colleges to submit details of stipends paid to MBBS interns and resident doctors for the financial year 2023-24.
This notice, more than three-and-a-half months after the last one, comes a week before the next hearing of the case on payment of stipends in the Supreme Court on April 8. The notice stated that the information was sought on the directions of the Supreme Court which ordered NMC in Sept 2023 and on April 1, 2024, to submit details of stipends paid to medical interns and residents. NMC first issued a notice seeking this information on April 16, 2024.
A year later, NMC is still issuing notices and threatening a penalty of Rs 50,000 for not submitting the information. Incidentally, the Undergraduate Medical Education Board, the autonomous board of NMC issuing these notices, doesn't have a single member since the tenure of all members ended months back. A large number of private medical colleges and some govt ones, which have not submitted the information till now, have been given one more chance.
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