Srinagar, July 02: In just two months, the Jammu and Kashmir Medical Council has issued over 1,600 registrations to medical professionals, marking a significant surge in new and renewed licenses across the region.JKMC is streamlining the issuance of registration certificates after it made it mandatory last year that no allopathic doctor shall be allowed to practice in Jammu & Kashmir without a permanent registration certificate issued by the Council.President of J&K Medical Council, Dr. Saleem Khan said in order to expedite the process of registration, various applicant-friendly measures have been taken within the ambit of National Medical Council (NMC) regulations.“Over last two months, 1,688 registration certificates were issued which include 542 permanent registrations, 863 provisional registrations, 132 additional qualification registrations, 111 NOCs and 40 good standing certificates,” he said.Notably, in 2024, 1295 permanent registrations, 1557 provisional registrations, 342 additional qualification registrations, 467 NOCs and 225 good standing certificates were issued.The registration requires verification and authentication by various issuing authorities including boards of school education for class 10 and 12 degrees, internship completion certificates by concerned medical colleges, mark sheets and degree certificates by issuing universities.Further, foreign medical graduates (FMGs) need verification of eligibility certificate by the NMC, degree certificates and internship completion certificate with marks cards by concerned medical universities through respective embassies, FMG Exam score card by National Board of Examination (NBE) etc.Khan said the demand for registration has gone enormous as all the universities concerned with MBBS courses issued final year results of around 8-9 hundred students in May-June this year and further around a thousand interns completed their compulsory internship during same time.“Also 255 FMGs were selected for compulsory rotatory medical internship in various medical colleges in Jammu & Kashmir as per their merit in FMG Exam conducted by National Board of Examination (NBE),” he said.Further, the J&KMC is issuing permanent registration for five years validity only and then it needs to be renewed every five years for which the registered medical practitioner shall have certain CME credits hours. The J&KMC is also proposing to hire more staff to overcome the backlog in short period of time and expedite the process of registrations. It is also contemplating digitalization of records of all registered medical practitioners registered with it since its inception.Recently, the JKMC came under criticism over delay in issuance of registration certificates to MBBS interns from various Government Medical Colleges in Jammu and Kashmir.