How to check an NCAHP registration
The NCAHP Act, 2021 created a regulator for physiotherapists and 50-odd allied professions; the state councils that register them are still being set up.
The National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions Act, 2021 is the first national statute to regulate physiotherapy, occupational therapy, medical laboratory science, radiography, nutrition, optometry and the other allied and healthcare professions. It provides for a national commission, professional councils under it, and state allied and healthcare councils that register individual professionals — the same three-tier shape as medicine and dentistry.
The difference is time. State councils under the Act are still being constituted, and in most states a physiotherapist today holds either a registration with an older state council (Maharashtra, Gujarat and Delhi have had physiotherapy councils for years) or a membership of a professional body such as the Indian Association of Physiotherapists, which is not a statutory register. On this site, a physiotherapist's registration is shown with the body named on the profile, and it is not on the NMC register.
How to check an allied-health professional's registration
Ask which body issued the number. If it is a state council — an allied and healthcare council under the 2021 Act, or an older state physiotherapy council — that council's register is the authoritative source. If it is a professional body, what you can verify is membership, which is a weaker claim than statutory registration; say so to yourself and weigh the qualification (a BPT or MPT from a recognised university) accordingly.
On this site the registering body is shown exactly as the profile supplied it, labelled "professional registration" rather than "medical registration", and the automated register check — which reads the NMC register only — does not run for it. A physiotherapist's page therefore stays marked as supplied until a person checks the number with the issuing body.
Questions people ask
- Do physiotherapists have to register anywhere?
- Under the NCAHP Act, 2021, yes — with a state allied and healthcare council once one exists in their state. Until then, practice rests on the qualification and, in some states, an older state council; in others, only a professional-body membership is available.
- Should a physiotherapist be called "Dr"?
- It is contested. Physiotherapists are not medical doctors and are not on a medical register; some use the title on the strength of a doctoral-style degree and some professional bodies endorse it, while medical councils have objected. This site records the registering body and the qualification and leaves the title question to the reader.
Every profile names the registering body and the number as supplied, and says whether that number has been checked against a register and when. Where it has not, the profile says so.
General information about how registration works in India, read from the sources below on 25 Sep 2026. Not advice about your situation. Errors can be reported through the corrections process.