NEW DELHI: The National Medical Commission (NMC) is considering a revised proposal to rotate heads of departments (HoDs) in medical colleges every five years, instead of the three-year tenure proposed earlier, following feedback from stakeholders.Under the revised proposal, rotation would be restricted to professors, rather than including both professors and eligible associate professors as envisaged in the draft amendment published in May 2025, M K Ramesh, president of the Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB), told TOI.Ramesh said the commission had received substantial feedback on the earlier proposal and that valid points raised by stakeholders would be considered. Suggestions included rotation periods of five or 10 years, as well as doing away with mandatory rotation altogether.The original draft amendment to the Postgraduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023, proposed rotating the HoD post every three years among eligible professors and associate professors, based on seniority. Nearly a year and a half after the draft was published, the proposal remains unresolved.
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Ramesh said the proposal would need to be taken up afresh and that the revised draft would be moved shortly. Once initiated, the process would be completed within six weeks, he said.He did not confirm whether the NMC would invite stakeholders to comment again on the revised proposal or take a decision based on the feedback already received.The delay had also prompted an RTI application by Dr A N Dattatri, professor and head of the department of pharmacology at Karnataka Medical College and Research Institute, Hubballi, seeking the PGMEB’s detailed note on stakeholder feedback and its views on the proposal. In a reply dated September 16, 2026, the board said the matter was under consideration and declined to disclose the information, citing Section 8(1)(i) of the RTI Act.The proposed change could affect how leadership positions are assigned in medical college departments. The five-year rotation plan remains a proposal and has not yet been formally notified.
