On Tuesday, the Parliament was informed that there is no permission to accommodate any medical students from foreign medical institutes to Indian medical colleges. The Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Mrs. Bharti Pawar, stated that there is no such provision in the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 or the National Medical Commission Act, 2019 to accommodate or transfer medical students from any foreign medical institutes to Indian medical institutions.

Mrs. Pawar stated that permission has not been given by the NMC to transfer or accommodate any foreign medical students in response to the question, ‘of whether the government will instruct the NMC to relax the extant guidelines to facilitate their admission to Indian medical colleges, as a special case’.

Mrs. Pawar shared the information in response to a written question on whether the NMC has not approved the decision of states to allow admission in their medical colleges to Indian medical students returning from war-torn Ukraine. She explained that foreign students/graduates are covered under the ‘Screening Test Regulations, 2002’ or ‘Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate Regulations (FMCG), 2021.’ She added that, as per the information received from the Ministry of External Affairs, the Indian Embassy in Kyiv has communicated with all the concerned universities in Ukraine to provide transcripts and other documents to the students.