The Indian Nursing Council (INC) has made the Certification of Graduate Foreign Nursing Services Examination (CGFNS) attestation, mandatory for nurses aspiring to work abroad.

According to sources, the decision would hinder the prospects of numerous nursing students to get a job abroad, including in the US, as more than half of the nursing schools and colleges in the country lack recognition from the Delhi based Indian Nursing Council. So far, the state based nursing councils had powers to verify and attest the CGFNS exam certificate.

For example, Kerala, the largest exporter of nursing workforce from India, has about 163 nursing schools and 43 nursing colleges including 15 schools in the government sector. Of this, only less than 70 have Nursing Council of India recognition, and the rest have only Kerala State Nursing Council recognition, noted sources.

According to the laws prevailing in the country, nurses have to qualify INC recognized nursing examinations to go abroad. However, this law had not been strictly implemented so far to help the cause of nursing community, and owing to pressure from a number of private nursing school managements which attract students with offers of placements abroad. Though INC had tried to strictly implement the same a few years ago, it had to backtrack following stern opposition from various state nursing councils.

Sources said the decision could cause inordinate delay in obtaining clearance certificate for nurses trained from even INC recognized institutions. It was not clear whether the New Delhi headquartered INC has enough manpower and mechanism to verify and approve the applications pouring in from different parts of the country.

On average, the state nursing councils in Tamil Nadu and Kerala alone were getting an average number of 20 to 30 applications every day, said sources.