PG Medical Admissions: New committee to decide, difficult and remote areas for Incentive marks scheme

Chennai: The State Health Department has recently released an official notification announcing the formation of a seven-member committee for identifying the rural, remote and difficult areas for purpose of awarding incentive marks to the in-service medical officers. The incentive marks will carry addtional weightage in admission to PG or Diploma courses from the academic year 2019 – 2020.

This comes after the state government examined the suggestion of the High Court of Madras in the said Writ Appeal to constitute a Committee headed by a retired High Court Judge for identifying the remote, difficult and rural areas for the purpose of awarding incentive marks to the in-service Medical Officers for getting admission in the Post Graduate Degree Courses from the academic year 2019-2020 and decided to accept the same.

Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported that the issue of classification of remote and difficult areas has been with the court for a long time. Earlier, a single judge had quashed the GOs issued by the govt in March 2018 identifying remote and difficult areas while allowing a batch of petitions filed by government doctors that alleged a that the classification was not made based on geographical parameters of areas, but other things like the number of vacancies and workload.

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With the new committee being formed, Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation chairman P Umanath, directors of medical services, public health and medical education, selection committee secretary and a demographer from the University of Madras have been made the members of the committee.

The committee which met for the first time on Thursday also asked the district Collectors to submit the list of remote, difficult, and rural areas in their districts. Speaking to The Indian Express, A Edwin Joe, a committee member and Director of Medical Education said, “The district Collectors were told to give remote and hilly, rural areas list in their districts, and based on the list, the committee will discuss and decide. The list will be submitted in three weeks,” he added.

The Terms of Reference for the Committee shall be as follows:-

• The Committee can get Suggestions from the Head of Departments, Tamil Nadu Government Doctors Association and other Associations and interested stakeholders on finding out the remote/difficult/ rural areas for awarding incentive marks to the service Doctors in the said areas in consonance with the Medical Council of India’s Post Graduate Regulations.


• The Committee would give the report/recommendations, for identifying the remote/difficult/ rural areas for awarding incentive marks to Service Doctors to Government within a month’s time.


• The Director of Medical Education / Director of Medical and Rural Health Services / Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine are directed to provide the required details. The Director of Medical Education/Selection Committee makes necessary arrangements for convening the meeting from time to time.


• For the Secretarial work and other assistance needed to the Chairman of the Committee, will be done by the Director of Medical Education/Selection Committee.


• The Committee can be a first-class Committee for the purpose of Travelling Allowance / Daily Allowance and sitting allowance and that all the expenses shall be charged under the Personal Deposit account of the Selection Committee including the manpower to be provided for the Committee.

The recommendations of the committee will have important implication in determining who will get additional weightage at the time of results and counselling for PG medical admissions

This year, students will appear for NEET PG 2019, examinaton January 6 and results are expected on January 31. Counselling for admission under the state quota will begin after at least one round of counselling by the directorate general of health services under the all-India quota. “We have adequate time to publish recommendations before the prospectus is published,” said one of the members to TOI.

As per MCI norms, an incentive up to 10% of the marks obtained for each year of service in remote and/or difficult areas or rural areas up to maximum of 30% of the marks obtained in National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test will be considered.

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