Your side of the counter
What the law requires of the clinic
Most of the ART Rules say what a clinic must be. A few say what it must show you. Those are the ones to know before you sit down.
1. The certificate has to be on display
Rule 8 says the certificate of registration must be displayed at a conspicuous place at the clinic. It carries the clinic's name and address, whether it is government or private, whether it is Level 1 or Level 2, its registration number, and the date the registration runs to.
What to do: before your first consultation, look for it. If it is not on the wall, ask for it. If they cannot produce it, that is your answer.
2. Registration lasts five years, and renewal is not automatic
A certificate is granted for five years. Under Rule 8A, added in 2026, a clinic must apply to renew it through the national registry sixty days before it expires, with a renewal fee. A missed deadline means paying the full original fee again.
What to do: read the date on the certificate. If it is close to expiring, ask whether the renewal has been filed.
3. There are minimum staff, and they are specific
A Level 2 clinic must have a gynaecologist, an anaesthetist, an embryologist and a counsellor. Schedule 1 sets out their qualifications, including a postgraduate degree in clinical embryology for the person handling your eggs and embryos.
What to do: ask who the embryologist is and what they are qualified in. Ask whether they will handle your case personally.
4. There is minimum equipment
Level 2 requires eleven items of laboratory equipment, including two incubators, laminar airflow, cryopreservation equipment, an ovum aspiration pump and an ultrasound with a transvaginal probe.
What to do: you are unlikely to audit a lab, but you can ask whether the embryos are cultured on site and how many incubators the lab runs. A clinic that outsources its embryology is a different proposition from one that does not.
5. Every clinic must have a grievance cell
Rule 11 requires every clinic and every bank to maintain a grievance cell, with a stated way of complaining to it. This is the first step in any dispute, and it is the step people skip.
What to do: ask for the grievance cell's contact details in writing at the start, not when something has gone wrong.
6. There is an appeal route
A clinic, a commissioning couple, or a woman may appeal to the State Government or the Central Government under Section 19, in Form 4 of the Rules. Separately, complaints about a clinic's registration go to the State Appropriate Authority that granted it.
What to do: keep the registration number. Every complaint you file will ask for it.
7. Your embryos cannot be handed to someone else
Rule 13(1)(a) says unused gametes or embryos must be preserved for use on the same person, and must not be used for another couple or woman. Rule 16 sets out how your consent must be taken before gametes or embryos are allowed to perish or be donated.
What to do: ask, before the cycle, what happens to embryos you do not use, how long they are stored, what storage costs, and what you would need to sign to change your instructions.
8. Sex selection is barred, and genetic testing is limited
Rule 13(1)(e) prohibits pre-implantation genetic testing for sex selection for non-medical reasons, for selecting particular traits, or to alter the genetic constitution of an embryo. Rule 13(1)(d) allows it only to screen for known heritable disease and where medically indicated.
What to do: if PGT is being offered without a named genetic condition or a medical reason, ask what indication is recorded in your file.
9. You should be asked to sign a specific form, not a general one
Rule 13(1)(f) requires the clinic to keep eight separate consent forms: general consent (Form 6), IUI (prepared sperm placed in the womb) with the husband's semen (Form 7), IUI with donor semen (Form 8), freezing embryos (Form 9), freezing gametes (Form 10), assent and parental consent for freezing (Form 11), egg retrieval (Form 12) and consent from an egg donor (Form 13).
What to do: ask which form covers the procedure you are being quoted for. If you are handed one general consent for everything, that is worth questioning.
What the law does not do
It does not guarantee a result, cap a price, or rank clinics by how well they treat people. Nothing in the ART Rules requires a clinic to publish its success rates, and no register in India holds them in a comparable form. If a clinic quotes you a success rate, ask what the denominator is: per cycle started, per egg collection, or per transfer. Those numbers differ widely for the same clinic.
It also does not make a licence a recommendation. A registration means the clinic met a floor. It does not mean anyone checked whether it is any good.
The complaint, in order
- The clinic's grievance cell (Rule 11). Ask for a written reply.
- The State Appropriate Authority that issued the registration. Find yours →
- An appeal to the State Government under Section 19, Form 4.
- CPGRAMS, if the authority does not respond. pgportal.gov.in →