Competency-based curricula and live professional registers are key to quality in health care. Examine with reference to allied health professionals.

Allied and healthcare professionals such as lab technologists, radiographers and physiotherapists handle much of India's diagnosis and rehabilitation. Yet before 2021 only a few States regulated them [1]. The NCAHP Act, 2021 and its 2026 regulations make competency and registration the two pillars of quality [2][3].

Competency-based curricula: quality at entry

• Outcomes over seat-time: the 2-year D.MRIT diploma for Class 12 (PCB) students was notified under "One Nation One Curriculum". It is mandatory from AY 2027–28 [3].
• Minimum standard: the Act sets a floor of 2,000 hours of training before someone counts as an "allied health professional" [2].
• Primary-care relevance: D.MRIT trains imaging staff for PHCs, where shortages limit diagnostics [3].
• Assessment link: the State-level Assessment & Rating Board rates institutions and publishes the results online [3].

Live registers: quality in practice

• Verifiability: the Act requires online, live Central and State Registers [2]. The Registration Regulations, 2026 put this into practice [3].
• Deterrence: falsely claiming registration draws fines of up to ₹50,000, and misusing titles up to ₹1 lakh [2].
• Accountability: the Ethics & Registration Board checks documents and evaluates complaints [3].
• Mobility: the Schedule maps professions to ISCO codes, which helps workforce planning [2].

Gaps that limit the promise

• Federal lag: a Central Assessment Committee is needed for States without functional councils, even though the Act gave them six months [2][3]. Without State Boards, registration stalls.
• Inspection culture: the Standing Committee preferred "assessment" to "inspection" [4], but the 2026 Board still inspects [3].
• Uniformity vs rural reality: the Committee wanted norms relaxed for hard-to-reach areas [4].
• Excluded workers: courses under 2,000 hours fall outside the register [2]. The Committee urged MoHFW to oversee them [4].

Curricula assure what professionals learn, and live registers assure who may practise. Together they link training to accountability. The way forward is a time-bound exit path for the Central Assessment Committee, the Committee's suggested skill-mapping and biometric monitoring of institutions [4], and a regulator for short courses. Done this way, NCAHP can advance the public-health duty in Article 47 and SDG 3.