New Delhi: A unified pan-India registration portal, integrating the registers of all State Medical Councils (SMCs) to generate a National Medical Register (NMR), is expected to be fully operational and publicly searchable early next year, a senior National Medical Commission (NMC) official told ThePrint Thursday.
The portal will synchronise the medical registers maintained by all SMCs on a single platform, allowing the NMC to seamlessly generate and update the NMR, providing a centralised digital database of all registered allopathic doctors practising in India.
Once operational, the portal will allow the public to search the NMR and verify doctors’ registration details. The NMR is meant to serve as a single national database of medical practitioners, with doctors’ registration and qualification details linked to their State Medical Register records.
About 1.66 lakh doctors have registered on the NMR so far, a senior official said. This is more than two years after the register was launched in August 2024.
India has 13,88,185 registered allopathic doctors, according to official data provided by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to Parliament in March this year.
“We expect to complete about 80 percent of the registration work by next year, while individual cases involving queries or discrepancies may take longer,” the senior NMC official told ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
Under the National Medical Commission Act 2019, the NMC’s Ethics and Medical Registration Board is required to maintain the national register, while State Medical Councils maintain and update their respective registers and share the information with the national database.
The idea is to make it easier to verify a doctor’s registration and credentials and, eventually, allow doctors to move between states without having to obtain multiple state registrations. The rollout, however, has been slow. “Accordingly, we have planned a digital solution and robust linkage,” the official added.
The NMC had earlier said registration would be simplified through a unified portal, with fresh medical graduates eventually getting an NMR identification number automatically after their State Medical Council registration. However, existing doctors would have to complete the registration process.
The official cited above also clarified that there is no separate fee for NMR registration, following confusion after the draft Registration of Medical Practitioners and Licence to Practice Medicine (Amendment) Regulations, 2026, proposed that State Medical Councils could charge a fee for registration and a licence to practise.
“The concerned State Medical Council shall satisfy themselves and consider the application for grant of Registration and licence to practise medicine after charging appropriate fee within a period of 30 days,” the draft had stated.
The official clarified that initial registration is always done at the level of the concerned SMC and they charge a fee as per the state specific statue and regulations. However, registration in NMR shall automatic and free of cost.
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On the delayed implementation of the NMR, officials said the process required stronger information-technology infrastructure and coordination with State Medical Councils. “We need a very strong infotech backup for this. The NMC has partnered with the National e-Governance Division (NeGD) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to revamp the whole NMR process,” the official said.
At present, doctors who are registered with a State Medical Council have to separately complete the NMR registration process. Their registration and qualification details are already held by the respective State Medical Councils, but these records have to be incorporated into the NMR.
The NMC, he said, is now trying to make this process simpler. A Unified PAN India Registration Portal is being developed to integrate State Medical Registers and the NMR, keeping them synchronised in real time.
Under the proposed system, a doctor registering with a State Medical Council would automatically be included in the NMR. This is intended to reduce the need for doctors to separately apply for a national registration number and address a concern raised by doctors about the current system.
Doctors had argued that their registration and qualification details are already available with State Medical Councils and should be transferred to the NMR rather than requiring fresh registration.
The senior official clarified that the data of only doctors who are previously registered with any SMC and have their Aadhaar linked with SMR, can be automatically pulled in the NMR.
“But the cases where the state council registration is not linked with Aadhar; it will be mandatory for such doctors to register on the national portal and apply for NMR ID as Aadhar validation is the essence & key aspect in creating the national database,” the senior official added.
The official said that NMC has also initiated amendments to its 2023 regulations to do away with multiple state registrations and allow pan-India mobility of registered medical practitioners. The draft amendment was issued for public comment in August 2026. He said that the final notification is expected by 30 November 2026.
The unified portal is expected to go live by 15 October 2026, with full commissioning targeted for 31 December 2026, he said. However, going live with the portal will not mean that the NMR is immediately a complete, publicly searchable database.
“Full functionality is dependent on integration of updated databases of all State Medical Registers. We are following this up rigorously with all State Medical Councils,” the official said, adding, “The main purpose of creating NMR is ultimately to ensure that anyone can verify their data on the national medical register.”
Making the NMR a complete, publicly searchable database would take longer, he added.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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