NMC relaxes medical faculty rules, aims to widen pool of medical professors

New NMC faculty rules allow more specialists to be appointed as professors, supporting the Union Health Ministry's push to expand medical education by 75,000 seats in five years

Non-teaching government hospitals with more than 220 beds can now be designated as teaching institutions to expand medical education capacity and strengthen faculty availability, according to the new faculty rules notified by the Post Graduate Medical Education Board (PGMEB) under the National Medical Commission (NMC).

 

In a bid to widen the faculty pool under the new Medical Institutions (Qualifications of Faculty) Regulations 2025, existing specialists with ten years of experience can be appointed as associate professors, while those with two years of experience can be appointed as assistant professors without the mandatory senior residency.

 

Before this, non-teaching doctors were allowed to become assistant professors after two years in 330-bed non-teaching hospitals that were being converted into medical colleges.

 

Similarly, faculty with super-specialty qualifications currently working in broad specialty departments can be formally designated as faculty in their corresponding super-specialty departments.

 

Bed requirements per unit have also been rationalised for several specialties.

 

The new regulations also allow postgraduate (PG) courses to be started with two faculty members and two seats, relaxing the earlier requirement of three faculty members and a senior resident. 

 

New government medical colleges will now also be permitted to start undergraduate (UG) and PG courses simultaneously, expediting the production of healthcare professionals and teaching faculty, the regulations said.

 

The commission added that the move comes in line with the Union government’s plan to facilitate the expansion of UG (MBBS) and PG (MD/MS) seats in medical colleges across India.

 

In this year’s budget, the Centre had announced a plan to add 75,000 new medical seats over the next five years. The Union Health Ministry had also recommended the use of existing infrastructure, such as small hospitals, for medical education.

 

However, a critical bottleneck has been the availability of qualified faculty required to initiate or expand medical programmes.

 

The regulations, NMC said, mark a shift in how faculty eligibility is determined, from rigid service norms to competency, teaching experience, and academic merit.

 

“These new regulations are a major step towards unlocking the existing human resource potential within government health systems and optimising medical education infrastructure,” it added.