Eight eye clinics, no ophthalmologist on site: technicians consulting under absent doctors' names in Miryalaguda, five arrested after a Telangana Medical Council sting

The Telangana Medical Council (TGMC) is an active anti-quackery regulator, and its Miryalaguda operation shows how a clinic can be registered with the health department and still have nobody qualified inside it. For students it illustrates how a real doctor's name can be lent to a business he never visits.

According to The South First (26 February 2026), the council received complaints on 19 December 2025 and the next day inspected eight private eye facilities in Miryalaguda, Nalgonda district, in a drive it called Mission Miryalaguda. Telangana Today reported that the facilities were registered with district health authorities but none had a qualified specialist on site: permissions had been obtained using the names of legitimate ophthalmologists practising in cities, while technicians ran the clinics, prescribed beyond their scope, conducted advanced diagnostic tests and in some instances performed surgery. At one clinic, The South First reported, a technician without an MBBS issued prescriptions using the "Dr" prefix; at another, staff said a technician had treated patients for over a year under the name of a doctor who had not attended in twelve months.

Evidence was gathered over about a month, including by sending patients to the clinics, Dr V. Naresh Kumar of the TGMC told The South First. In January 2026 police registered six FIRs at Miryalaguda I Town and II Town police stations under Sections 318(4) and 319(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 22 of the Telangana Medical Practitioners Registration Act, 1968. Telangana Today reported five ophthalmic technicians arrested; Medical Dialogues (27 February 2026) reported five technicians and one unqualified practitioner arrested, most of the technicians claiming a Diploma in Ophthalmic Assistant. Four registered ophthalmologists received show-cause notices to appear before the council's Medical Ethics and Malpractices Committee, and the registrar asked the Nalgonda District Collector to cancel the clinics' registrations. Dr Naresh Kumar said: "They are encouraging unnecessary surgeries by taking advantage of illiterate patients and their innocence."

The mechanism, as The South First explained it, is that registration under the Clinical Establishments Act covers the management of a premises, not the right to practise. A certificate listing a qualified doctor who never attends gives a false sense of legitimacy, and patients cannot tell a diploma-holder from an ophthalmologist unless they ask for the registration number of the person examining them.

For a student or family the lesson is to ask whether the doctor named on a clinic's registration is physically present, and to check that name on the state medical council register. A consultant who signs under another doctor's name is a signal to leave. The same applies when an agent shows you a college's affiliation letter: the paper may be genuine while the people in front of you are not.