The Labyrinth of License Permit Raj Mentality

A few months ago, National Medical Commission regulated that Tamil Nadu cannot have any additional seats because they deemed that the state has more seats than what NMC deems necessary.

This is another glaring example of the license-permit raj mindset that has engulfed our society since independence. A few years ago, AICTE constituted Mohan Reddy Committee also recommended not allowing creation of additional capacity in engineering education. The Committee was so proud of its’ conclusion that it was the first recommendation in its’ executive summary!

Even the opposition to NMC’s decision was sub par. The TN Health Secretary questioned why TN colleges should be limited to catering to doctors for TN state only. The question not asked was:

Why should colleges in TN not cater to medical education for students from across the globe?

Then of course is the other regulation of capping the number of seats in each college. No wonder, as Pranay Kotasthane noted in his excellent newsletter, Indian medical colleges are dwarf, compared to colleages in China.

No wonder Indian medical students find it cheaper to go to Philippines, Ukraine, Georgia, etc.

If not already in place, Mission Karmayogi Bharat should start inculcating lessons on economics and free markets for all government servents. We need a decade reversing the existant mindset of top-down governance and appreciate the value of free market to create prospecrity for all. PM Modi gave the mantra of “minimum government, maximum governance”. Probably a mandatory MG2 module providing case studies of how this mantra has worked in other countries, and how this is impeding wealth creation in our country will help, along with large scale public awareness campaign!