Photo: Karnanand, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Most practising dentists in India learned about the change through a news headline rather than a direct communication. On 19 March 2026, the Government of India notified that the The statutory body established by the National Dental Commission Act 2023 to replace the Dental Council of India. It regulates dental education, institutional assessment, and practitioner registration through three autonomous boards. (NDC) had come into force. Simultaneously, the Dental Council of India was dissolved and the Dentists Act 1948, which had governed the profession for nearly eight decades, was repealed.
For a practising dentist with an existing registration, the practical answer is straightforward: your licence continues, and you do not need to do anything. For a clinic owner who is about to hire a fresh graduate, the picture is more complicated. This article covers both.
The PIB notification of 19 March 2026 confirmed three things at once: the NDC Act 2023 came into force, the Dental Council of India was dissolved with effect from the same date, and the Dentists Act 1948 stood repealed. Dr. Sanjay Tewari was appointed as the first Chairperson of the National Dental Commission.
The NDC was not created from scratch. Under Section 59 of the NDC Act 2023, the Commission is the successor in interest to the Dental Council of India. All assets and liabilities of the DCI transferred to the NDC on the same date. Functions that the DCI performed, including maintaining the Indian Dental Register, passed to the relevant NDC board.
Rather than replicating the single-body structure of the DCI, the NDC operates through three autonomous boards, each with a distinct mandate:
State Dental Councils, which handle state-level registration, continue to exist under the NDC framework. The Ethics Board sits above them on appeals.
The question most practising dentists have is a simple one: does the dissolution of the DCI mean their licence is no longer valid? The answer, rooted in the transition provision of the NDC Act, is no.
The NDC Act 2023 provides that any person registered in the Indian Dental Register maintained under the Dentists Act 1948, prior to the NDC Act coming into force, shall be deemed to have been registered under the NDC Act and enrolled in the National Register. This is a standard succession clause. It means the register itself transferred to the Ethics and Dental Registration Board, with every entry in it intact.
No dentist who was validly registered under the DCI needs to apply again, pay a re-registration fee, or produce new documents solely because of the transition. If you have questions about a specific registration number, the correct body to contact is now the Ethics and Dental Registration Board.
Section 15 of the NDC Act 2023 introduces a A common final-year undergraduate dental examination introduced by the NDC Act 2023 under Section 15. Passing it is required before a new BDS graduate can be granted a licence to practice or enrol in a postgraduate programme. It replaces the previous BDS final examination as the licensing gateway., or NExT-Dental, as a common final-year undergraduate examination. Passing it is required before a BDS graduate can be granted a licence to practice independently or enrol in an MDS programme. It replaces the BDS final examination as the gateway to registration.
This matters for clinic owners hiring fresh associates. Before a newly graduated dentist can see patients independently, they must have passed the NExT-Dental and received their registration. The transition provisions of the Act mean that graduates from batches that completed their degree before the NExT-Dental became operational are covered by the deemed-registration clause and can practice under their existing registration. For batches after that cutoff, the NExT-Dental is the requirement.
The practical check when hiring is straightforward: confirm that the candidate holds a valid registration number, whether issued by a State Dental Council or the NDC, before they start seeing patients independently.
The dciindia.gov.in domain has been retained and, at the time of writing, still carries information from the DCI era alongside NDC transition notices. Because the NDC is the legal successor in interest to the DCI, all registration records, disciplinary records, and the Indian Dental Register itself transferred to the NDC. The Ethics and Dental Registration Board is the body that now holds and maintains those records.
If you need an official copy of your registration certificate or a verification letter, the correct point of contact has shifted from the DCI to the Ethics and Dental Registration Board. The PMC review article on this transition, "A New Era in Dental Regulation", notes that dental colleges and practitioners should expect updated operational guidelines as the NDC frames its regulations under the Act.
For a clinic running day-to-day, several things are unaffected by the transition. Your GST treatment for dental services continues to be governed by Notification 12/2017-Central Tax (Rate), which has nothing to do with the DCI or the NDC. Your obligation to retain clinical records, your DPDP compliance responsibilities, and your NABH accreditation status, if any, all sit under their own regulatory regimes. The NDC governs who may practice dentistry and how dental education is conducted; it does not supersede the other compliance obligations that run alongside it.
Yes. The NDC Act 2023 provides that any person registered in the Indian Dental Register under the Dentists Act 1948 before the Act came into force shall be deemed to have been registered under the NDC Act and enrolled in the National Register. No action is required on your part.
No. Existing registrations transfer automatically under the deemed-registration provision of the NDC Act. You do not need to apply again or pay a fresh registration fee because of the transition.
Section 15 of the NDC Act 2023 requires new BDS graduates to pass the National Exit Test (Dental) before they can practice independently or enrol in a postgraduate programme. Before you take on a fresh associate, confirm whether their graduating batch was covered by the NExT-Dental requirement or falls under a transition provision.
Section 59 of the NDC Act 2023 makes the NDC the successor in interest to the Dental Council of India. All assets and liabilities of the DCI transferred to the NDC on 19 March 2026.
Whoever the regulator is, a clinic's patient records, billing history, and treatment documentation need to be retrievable. Dentomate stores clinical records against a date-stamped audit trail, which means a future Ethics Board query or consumer complaint can be answered from the system rather than from a paper file. The free plan covers record storage for up to 20 new patients per month; the Starter plan at ₹399 a month removes that limit. Full plan details are on the pricing page.
Dentomate keeps a date-stamped audit trail behind every patient record. Free forever, no card required.
