The National Medical Commission (NMC) has now recommended withdrawing recognition of diploma courses completed at the College of Physicians and Surgeons (CPS) in Mumbai. In 2017, the central government amended rules to allow doctors with a CPS diploma to practice as specialists and perform procedures that were previously performed by postgraduate degree holders.

In 2017, the Union health ministry and the Medical Council of India (MCI) notified that all diploma courses conducted by the CPS would be considered the equivalent of a postgraduate degree retrospectively from 2009. Approximately 1,200 MBBS doctors are awarded these diplomas and are considered specialists each year.

Before 2017, only the governments of Maharashtra and Gujarat recognized CPS diplomas in anesthesia, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, orthopedics, radiology, and other specialties. 

The Indian medical education regulator, which replaced the MCI in 2020, stated that the Post-Graduate Medical Education Board (PGMEB) had deliberated on the issue and found that granting the diploma courses PG equivalence was outside the purview of the regulator.

The NMC also stated that the PGMEB has recommended that the three diploma courses, namely Diploma in Pathology and Bacteriology (DPB), Diploma in Child Health (DCH), and Diploma Gynaecology and Obstetrics (DGO), for which the health ministry had granted equivalence, be withdrawn from the next academic session.

The regulator added that from now on, they will only recognize MS/MD and DNB (Diplomate of National Board) as the two postgraduate qualifications for MBBS doctors. 

(Source: https://theprint.in/health/medical-regulator-nmc-wants-govt-to-scrap-pg-equivalence-for-cps-diplomas-that-let-doctors-specialise/1554014/)