NORI certificate is necessary for two-year home residency to J1 visa holders.
India’s central health ministry denied the application of a medical graduate seeking “No Obligation to Return to India” (NORI) certificate, which is necessary for two-year home residency to J1 visa holders, citing an acute shortage of doctors in India.
Dr Sunil Noothi wants to do a post-doctoral research in the United States, but this is the second time government denies visa certificate to him, despite Bombay High Court pulling up the health ministry for its unreasonable decision, Times of India reported.
According to the report, the 39-year-old Noothi earlier denied NORI certificate in 2015 and the recent June 28 denial says allowing him to go abroad would be against public interest. The ministry says that India has 6.9 lakh doctors and needs 4 lakh more by 2022 and allowing Noothi a NORI certificate would violate the government’s policy to stop issuing it to doctors aged below 65, since 2011.
It was in 2014, the central government implemented a new policy to ensure doctors return to India after their training or higher studies in the United States. The ministry prohibited issuance of NORI to doctors below 65.
However, the Bombay High Court’s Aurangabad bench in December made it clear that the policy is not applicable to Noothi as he is not a medical practitioner, but a research scholar. The HC directed health ministry to reconsider its decision.
The High Court also praised Noothi’s intention and criticized the government for “making it difficult for him to prosecute his research work” to find a cure for blood cancer, which “is likely to help the entire mankind.”
Noothi also made it clear that he only wants to pursue research and is even willing to surrender his medical license.
“I have lost two years and also the research project I was working,” Times of India quoted Noothi.
He is now working as a tutor, the lowest position in a medical college, at a Karnataka college, earning Rs 29,000 (about $451) a month.