Doctors Question Why They Must Register Again for National Medical Register

A plan to build a single, verified national database of India's doctors is running into resistance from the very people it is meant to list. Medical practitioners are asking a pointed question: why should they pay a fee and register all over again for the National Medical Register (NMR) when their credentials already sit with State Medical Councils?

The pushback comes as the Ethics and Medical Registration Board (EMRB) of the National Medical Commission (NMC) moves to amend the Registration of Medical Practitioners and Licence to Practice Medicine Regulations, 2026.

What the law already says

At the heart of the dispute is a deceptively simple question: whose job is it to build the register? Doctors argue the NMC Act, 2019, settled this long ago. Sections 31(1), 31(6) and 31(7) state that the EMRB "shall maintain a National Register" of all licensed medical practitioners, that State Medical Councils will maintain and update their State Registers with the EMRB, and that the EMRB must ensure electronic synchronisation between the two.

K.V. Babu, a Kannur-based doctor and RTI activist, puts it bluntly:

"Nowhere in the NMC Act is it stated that it is the responsibility of registered medical practitioners to apply for NMR registration."

Slow uptake and a fresh bill

The practical record lends weight to the scepticism. Applications submitted by several doctors have remained pending before the EMRB for years, raising doubts about whether individual applications from every State-registered doctor are even workable. There is also a financial sting: doctors note they already pay substantial registration and licensing charges to State Medical Councils, and an NMR fee would be one more burden, Dr. Babu says.

"Our data is already with the State Medical Council and it just needs to be handed over to the EMRB. We fail to understand why the NMR database creation should be so complicated and why doctors are being put through the registration and verification formalities all over again," says M.N. Menon, State President of the Indian Medical Association, Kerala.

What doctors are demanding

The demand is straightforward: withdraw the proposed draft amendment and direct State Medical Councils to transmit their databases to the EMRB, which would then create the NMR and the unique IDs for doctors. For a register meant to simplify verification, doctors argue, the process should not begin by duplicating it.