Saralnama
A report by Ezhilan Naganathan, MLA and State Planning Commission member, submitted to Tamil Nadu's High-Level Committee on Union-State Relations, highlights increasing centralisation in health and medical education sectors by the Union government. It identifies six key areas of encroachment, including the shift of medical education from the State List to the Concurrent List, which creates policy-implementation gaps. The report recommends restoring medical education to the State List and reinstating State authority over public health and medical education. It criticises the replacement of the Medical Council of India with the National Medical Commission, citing reduced State roles in curricula and admission exams like NEET and NEXT, which it claims favour certain syllabi and disadvantage government school students. The report also raises concerns about centralised organ transplantation management via NOTTO, suggesting a dual-tier system with State-led intra-State allocation. Additional issues include centralised drug regulation, conditional Centre-funded health schemes, uniform parameters ignoring State-specific needs, and cultural centralisation affecting linguistic and regional diversity. The report urges financial and institutional empowerment of States to improve health systems. (Updated 21 Aug 2025, 18:33 IST; source: link)