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NEW DELHI: Seventy medical colleges and hospitals, including several prominent government institutions in Delhi, have failed to comply with the National Medical Commission’s (NMC) mandatory requirement to link their CCTV surveillance systems with the regulator’s Command and Control Centre despite repeated directions issued since 2022.The non-compliant institutions include Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Medical Sciences (ABVIMS) and Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, Maulana Azad Medical College, University College of Medical Sciences and GTB Hospital, ESIC Medical College, Basaidarapur, G.B. Pant Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya, Central Health Education Bureau, and the Indian Railway Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences and Research in Delhi.Under NMC regulations, all medical colleges are required to install 25 CCTV cameras at designated locations, maintain 30 days’ playback, and provide the Commission with live access through a Network Video Recorder (NVR). The surveillance system enables the regulator to remotely monitor institutional functioning, including classroom teaching, clinical activity and compliance with prescribed standards. The Commission said it had repeatedly followed up with colleges that had failed to install the mandated CCTV system or share live feeds despite multiple advisories and communications issued since 2022. It has now directed all such institutions to comply immediately.Responding to the inclusion of RML Hospital on the non-compliance list, the hospital administration told TOI, “We have already discussed this issue and we are sorting it out.””Medical colleges have been given an opportunity to explain the deficiencies. If the responses are not satisfactory, appropriate regulatory action will follow. The CCTV system is part of a larger digital compliance framework that enables us to remotely verify teaching, clinical activity and adherence to NMC norms,” an NMC official told TOI.The list includes undergraduate and postgraduate medical colleges run by both government and private managements across Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.The issue assumes added significance amid heightened focus on surveillance and campus safety in medical institutions following the alleged rape and murder of a postgraduate trainee doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital last year. However, the NMC’s CCTV monitoring framework predates the incident and was introduced in 2022 as part of a broader digital mechanism to strengthen regulatory oversight of medical colleges.
