From next year, a one-year stint in the villages will be a mandatory requirement for MBBS students before they can apply for a postgraduate degree in India. Reviving the proposal that was earlier shelved following nationwide protests by medical students, the Union Health Ministry has just sent the final proposal for a compulsory rural stint to the Medical Council of India for approval.

Once it approves the proposal, MCI will have to make changes in its regulation defining who is eligible to apply for a PG medical degree in India. Officials made it clear that the rule will apply from the next academic year. The government has, however, decided to spare students applying for PG degrees in courses like anatomy, biochemistry and physiology ‘‘as the country is facing an acute shortage of students opting for such courses’’.

If an MBBS doctor completes his PG course from a foreign university, he can come back and practise provided the PG degree is recognized in India. In such cases, the mandatory rural stint will not be applicable. According to officials, MBBS doctors will have to spend four months each in a primary health centre, community health centre and district hospital. They will be paid a monthly stipend of Rs 10,000.

A ministry official said that a plan to make the one-year internship programme a mandatory part of the five-and-a-half-year MBBS course has been shelved. ‘‘We had also thought that doctors who don’t work in the villages will not be given their registration to practice. However, the new proposal says that only when a medical student has served one year in rural India and holds an MBBS degree will he be eligible for a PG degree.’’

According to the official, the stipend will be paid by the states from their National Rural Health Mission funds. ‘‘These doctors will be accommodated to serve in various schemes under NRHM.’’ Officials say the recommendation actually came from a high-level committee set up by Health Minister A Ramadoss which was headed by Dr Sambhava Rao, vice-chancellor of NTR University of Health Sciences.

When announcing the committee, Ramadoss had said, “The government has subsidized medical education in India. While studying in private colleges may cost Rs 4 lakh, the annual tuition fee of a medical student in a government college is just Rs 4,000 in Tamil Nadu. In AIIMS, it is just Rs 210 while in JIPMER it is Rs 125. So by asking them to serve India’s poor for just a year, we aren’t asking too much. Moreover, the stint will help them gain experience.’’