NEW DELHI: Nearly half of India’s medical colleges (44.5%) have failed to set up Enabling Units mandated by the National Medical Commission for students with benchmark disabilities. Of 798 colleges, 355 remain non-compliant, with several naming sanitation inspectors, residents, tutors and head clerks as single points of contact, according to an affidavit filed by the Commission in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.At Maharashtra Government Medical College, Nandurbar, a sanitation inspector, has been designated as the coordinator of the Enabling Unit. Other colleges have named residents, tutors and head clerks as points of contact.Dr Satendra Singh, disability-rights activist and doctor associated with Doctors with Disabilities: Agents of Change, questioned the choice of personnel for the role. “It’s unheard of for a sanitation inspector or head clerk to be made in-charge of such a committee in a medical college. They have neither the designated administrative or academic responsibility for undergraduate or postgraduate training nor the training or authority to deal with disability accommodation, clinical training, patient safety or assessment.”He added, “They cannot take or escalate decisions on postings, duty hours, assistive devices, accessible infrastructure, examination accommodations or clinical-rotation modifications. Tutors and residents are also a floating population, often at an institution for only a limited period. How would a postgraduate student in pharmacology, who may not even be an alumnus of that institution, know what assistance a wheelchair-using medical student needs in an operation theatre or have the authority to direct the theatre staff?”The NMC circular does not prescribe a doctor or clinical faculty member as the single point of contact. It does, however, assign the Enabling Unit responsibility for reasonable accommodation, academic and clinical support, barrier-free access, coordination, record-keeping and information dissemination.The compliance exercise was undertaken following the Supreme Court’s August 4, 2026 order in Anmol vs Union of India, which directed the NMC to seek college-wise compliance with its July 27 circular through Deans and Principals.
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The court warned that if colleges failed to respond or follow the directions, “a serious view will be taken against the individual colleges.”The NMC’s affidavit said 515 of 798 colleges had responded by September 28: 443 reported full compliance, 26 partial or ongoing compliance, and 46 submitted only the committee-constitution order. As many as 283 colleges did not respond. Majority of NMC-designated medical assessment boards and appellate boards themselves fail to comply, despite NMC warning that “serious view” would be takenThe commission had set September 10 as the deadline and issued reminders on September 23 and 24, the latter warning that late submissions would not be accepted and show-cause notices would follow. Colleges were required to provide details of the unit, its members and POC, functionality, accessibility, communication to students, records and compliance status.
