Medical education in India is seriously ill. "We would never have sent my son to become a doctor had we known this would happen to him," said a parent running a small business in Punjab. He said: "Our son was very meritorious. But now he is depressed. I fear he will take any wrong step."
The "wrong step" means suicide. No one in the country was concerned about the suicide of Dr. Divesh Garg, a paediatrics PG student in a medical college in Dehradun. The middle-class father from Haryana ensured he got admission by paying Rs 38 lakh. It would have cost Rs 1.20 crore in three years. But one night in May 2024, Dr. Divesh committed suicide. He was the only brother to his four sisters.
His father, Ramesh Chandra Garg, levelled serious allegations against the SGRR Medical College management. Dr. Divesh was made to work continuously for 36 hours despite having a 104-degree fever. His thesis was repeatedly rejected. Several times he was humiliated in front of patients and students. The grief-stricken father said, "Our life has been ruined."
Long duty of 36 or more hours continuously during internship and residency is a serious problem. Taking to social media, an OBG PG student wrote, "Ni ho ri residency" (I am not able to do residency). An Ortho student wrote: "I have got fifteen minutes' time. Should I cry or sleep?" Dr. Rishu Sinha from Patna-Ranchi wrote: "I've completed MBBS. Now I'm preparing for NEET PG. But how will I survive the toxicity of residency?"
A female PG student was raped and murdered in August 2024 at RG Hospital in Kolkata. She had slept in the seminar hall after working continuously for 36 hours. She didn't have the strength to cry out for help or to defend herself. During the hearing of that case, the Supreme Court had described 36 hours of continuous duty as inhumane. Now the United Doctors Front (UDF) has petitioned the Supreme Court to implement the 1992 rules that limit weekly duty hours to 48 hours. According to Dr. Lakshya Mittal, Chairperson of UDF, a reply has been sought from the Health Ministry and National Medical Commission on this petition.
After this petition, two major changes were seen. First, AIIMS issued an order on 21 August 2025 reiterating the applicability of the 1992 Rules. Secondly, many medical colleges started avoiding recording the actual duty hours of the residents. There were even complaints of fake duty rosters being created in some cases to hide the actual illegitimate duty hours.
Some students, parents, journalists and social activists who are trying to reform medical education have extracted a lot of information under RTI. In most of the cases, inputs from the health ministries and directorates of the Centre and states, as well as from NMCs and medical colleges, are crucial. These RTIs have exposed the lack of accountability of various medical education agencies.
Meena Kotwal, Editor of the independent newsroom The Mooknayak, which promotes this citizen investigative journalism initiative, says: "The RTI has brought to light the alarming condition of medical education in India. If medical education is compromised, public health is at risk."
In the five years from 2018 to 2022, a total of 122 medical students committed suicide. The National Medical Commission gave this information to Dr. Vivek Pandey under RTI. Of these, 64 were MBBS students and 58 were PG students. This suicide rate of an average of 25 medical students every year has more than doubled in 2025. In just seven months, this number has gone up to about 30.
Becoming a doctor is a big dream. Dr. Vivek Pandey's RTI revealed that between 2018 and 2022, a total of 1,117 PG medical students dropped out. A fine of ten to fifty lakhs or even more has to be paid for leaving the seat. There are very few seats in PG courses. Getting a seat in PG is also very difficult. PG courses in private colleges can cost anywhere between Rs 50 lakh to Rs 3 crore. But the students are forced to leave such a hard-earned PG seat or even to commit suicide.
Swami Dass's RTI revealed that in five years, 24 PG students of NIMHANS (Bengaluru) gave up their seats. In AIIMS Mangalagiri (Andhra Pradesh), the figure is 22. A total of 31 PG students of AIIMS Gorakhpur (UP) had to give up their seats.
Various RTIs show that in the period 2020–2024, a total of 276 PG medical students dropped out in JIPMER (Puducherry), 178 in AIIMS (Bhopal) and 64 in Safdarjung Hospital (Delhi). That's a huge number. The main reason for this is the long hours of work. JIPMER (Puducherry) and NIMHANS (Bengaluru) have agreed on record that they had to drop out due to professional reasons.
The Residency Scheme directives were issued by the Ministry of Health, Government of India in 1992 based upon an order of the Supreme Court of India. According to this, PG medical students have to work a maximum of 48 hours a week. A maximum of 12 hours at a time. But according to the various RTI replies, this is not being implemented at all.
NIMHANS (Bengaluru) is the premier National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences of India that handles a huge load of patients with mental health issues. But pathetically, it pays no attention to the mental health of its own doctors. Even in such an institution, the importance of adequate sleep and rest for mental health is not understood. It mentioned 30 to 60 consecutive hours of duty in its RTI reply to Swami Dass dated 20 September 2025. The same institute, in the reply of 25 September 2025, gave information about 30 to 36 hours of duty continuously.
AIIMS (Bhubaneswar), in its communication dated 26 March 2025, has accepted the imposition of duty of 24 to 30 and 36 hours respectively. The 3 July 2025 notification of the same institute revealed six consecutive 24-hour duties every month in some departments.
The Department of Anaesthesia, AIIMS (Delhi), gave an important piece of information to Swami Dass under RTI on 4 October 2025. The professor in charge of the department will be held liable for legal action under the Indian Penal Code for 36 consecutive hours of duty. But due to the falsification of duty records, it could not be revealed how many hours a student actually worked.
In AIIMS Nagpur, PG medical students have to work three times as much. On 16 October, Dr. Meenakshi Girish, head of the department of paediatrics at AIIMS Nagpur, gave information in response to Varadarajan's RTI application. In August and September 2025, the students worked a total of 540 hours per month—135 hours per week. According to the rules of AIIMS, there should be 48 hours in a week and a total of 192 hours in a month. Instead, 15 instances of 24-hour duties or more were reported in a month. The Anaesthesia Department of AIIMS Nagpur has reported 328 hours of work from some of the resident doctors in September 2025. In this department, six or seven duties of 24 to 36 hours in a row were imposed in September. Dr. Mahendra Chauhan, the head of the department of emergency medicine, has reported working for 296 hours in a month.
The Ministry of Health had issued the residency scheme in 1992 on the orders of the Supreme Court. I asked for a copy of the directives under RTI. The Ministry informed on 23 April 2025 that it is not possible to look for those directives due to the change in the divisions in which the work related to medical education was coordinated in 1992. The same was said in the first appeal under RTI. The "disappearance" of the most important document for medical education in India on the orders of the Supreme Court is a matter of concern and investigation.
Under the RTI Act, information can be sought within 48 hours on a matter related to the life and liberty of a person. The parents of some students are seeking such information from their institution citing a threat to the mental and physical health of their son or daughter. In some cases, the information is getting muddled, while in some cases the information is not forthcoming, but the concerned students get some relief. Such RTI-related cases are not being highlighted in this report on the request of the concerned family members. The Mooknayak has the copies of such RTI documents.
In order to hide the truth of excessive duty, the tendency of most of the medical colleges not to record the working hours of every student by creating an actual duty roster has also come to the fore due to RTI. This was also revealed in the information given to Swami Dass in October 2025. JIPMER (Puducherry), an Institute of National Importance of the Central Government, has no provision to record the working hours of resident doctors. No one is accountable for excessive duty hours. There is no official data on when and how many hours a resident is present inside a hospital ward.
The Department of Paediatrics, AIIMS Delhi, informed Swami Dass on 28 September 2025 that the hours resident doctors worked in the hospital ward or OPD is not recorded in any document.
Parents and health activists say this is worrying. If an accident were to happen to their children inside or outside the institution, it would be difficult to determine their location. If a crime occurred, there would be no record of their presence on campus. Right to Information requests revealed that college administrations avoid documenting actual duty hours, thereby keeping such human rights violations off the record. Most postgraduate students are not given any leave for six months to a year. When asked for information under the RTI, colleges admit—while making excuses—that there is no record of actual duty hours. In many colleges, fake duty rosters are created that have no relation to real duty hours or official leave.
The National Medical Commission set up a National Task Force in 2024 to investigate the causes of rising suicides and mental distress among medical students. But the NTF’s recommendations were not implemented. For example, the NTF recommended giving medical students ten days of family leave each year for their mental wellbeing. When this was queried through an RTI, the NMC plainly replied: “No action taken.”
According to a study by the National Task Force of 787 medical students, 37% had suicidal thoughts. Of these, 11% had even made plans to take their own life. The report found that 7% assessed themselves at risk for future suicidal behaviour and 19.6% of respondents had exhibited suicidal behaviour. The report states that “medical students experience high levels of stress, burnout and depression, which may increase their risk of suicide.”
This was also revealed to Swami Dass in information received under RTI from JIPMER (Puducherry) in October 2025. Its Department of Mental Health reported that within three years, 118 PG students sought counselling for psychological problems. Of these, 29 students complained of workplace-related difficulties—excessive work pressure, conflicts with senior students, academic problems and stress with faculty over their theses.
Under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, higher education institutions are legally required to be inclusive of all types of disabilities. Yet in medical colleges, disabled PG students are being deprived of technical assistance and basic access by being assigned long duties. A student with polio, for example, is often forced to stand for extended periods during long shifts. Instead of being assigned work appropriate to their specific abilities, they are given ordinary tasks and subjected to harassment. According to Dr. Satyendra Singh from Delhi, who works for the cause of PwD medical students, this is discrimination under the 2016 law.
Upon receiving such complaints from UDF, the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment of the Government of India had issued instructions on 2 July 2025 to ensure their rights. But an RTI revealed that, to date, no guidelines have been created to address the special needs of disabled medical students. This was made clear in a communication sent to me by the NMC on 25 July 2025. An RTI reply sent by ESI Medical College, Chennai, to Swami Dass on 18 September 2025 likewise stated that there are no special provisions for PwD medical students.
Marginalized students from SC, ST and OBC communities too suffer inhumane duty hours in addition to caste discrimination. This makes their residency miserable. Taking note of the grievance of scheduled caste medical students, which was raised by UDF, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes issued notices to AIIMS Delhi and the Ministry of Health on 1 October 2025. Many RTIs were filed to concerned departments and ministries by various individuals and doctors' associations, for which responses are awaited in this regard.
In India, some private medical colleges are obtaining recognition fraudulently, sometimes under the names of fake faculty, without having the required infrastructure and manpower. Under the NMC Act, 2019, full details of inspections and assessments of these colleges are supposed to be posted on the website. Students should have access to complete information before taking admission to any college. But bowing to the private college mafia, the NMC has made everything confidential and stopped publishing it on the website. Far from putting it up on the website, information isn't even available under RTI. After the Central Information Commission directed the provision of information, NMC itself amended the provisions of the NMC Act 2019 in its meeting on 1 May 2024, which is not under its jurisdiction. While it's true that a law made by Parliament can be amended by Parliament itself, it was amended by NMC themselves. This was exposed after an RTI request filed by me.
The result? There are huge scams being carried out under the guise of inspecting and accrediting private medical colleges. In 2025, the CBI filed charges against 35 accused across seven states. The names of officials from the central health ministry and the NMC are also among those accused in these scandals.
Because of the exemptions granted by the NMC, there are countless examples of looting and arbitrary behaviour by private medical colleges. At MIMS in Barabanki, MBBS student Anviksha Chandel was admitted to the MBBS 2023–24 batch. At that time, she was illegally charged excessive fees. In September 2023, her father complained to the state government. The government ordered an inquiry by a four-member committee. All the allegations against the college were substantiated. The government instructed the college to immediately refund the illegally collected amount to the student’s bank account and to give her remedial classes for low attendance so she could be allowed to sit the current exam. Despite clear orders from the DGME, the college did not permit the student to take the exam scheduled for 4 October 2025. The RTI query filed in this matter has not been replied to till date.
Dr. Arun Kumar, the General Secretary of UDF, received shocking information under RTI regarding negligence in data management. In 2020, there were 72,636 doctors registered under the Delhi Medical Council. While the Government of India informed Parliament in 2024 that there are only 31,479 doctors registered in Delhi. There was a difference of more than 40,000 between the data of the Delhi Medical Council and the Government of India regarding the actual number of doctors.
Another such case was highlighted by Dr. Babu KV. Under the NMC Act 2019, it is mandatory for doctors across the country to create a National Medical Register (NMR). But the NMC informed in the RTI that applying for issuance of NMR-ID by doctors is voluntary. It's a contradiction. The aim of NMR is to make the data of doctors systematic and transparent, but due to the voluntary application, the name of not even one percent of doctors has been registered in it so far.
Hospitals rely heavily on residents who work 36-hour shifts, making them vulnerable to violence for any lapses. The murder of Dr. Vandana Das, a young medical student, at a Kerala government hospital on 10 May 2023, is a grim reminder. A patient brutally killed her with hospital scissors. The bloodstains on her white coat symbolize the insecurity residents face. Despite repeated queries through RTIs, the onus of ensuring their safety during extended shifts remains unclear.
There are hundreds of RTIs being filed with various authorities. These RTIs reveal that medical education and health services in India are themselves ailing. Along with medical students, citizens are also suffering due to poor quality healthcare.
(Vishnu Rajgadia is a media educator and a freelancer using RTI. He can be reached at vranchi@gmail.com)
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