Telangana: Govt doctors protest against GOs 21 and 22 on PG seats

Warangal: A protest demonstration was organised recently, by government doctors working in various hospitals, demanding the withdrawal of Government Orders 21 and 22.

According to them, these orders would deprive the in-service candidates of opportunity to pursue PG courses. The GOs were issued to do away with the 50% seat reservation in PG medical courses of government colleges. In place of reservation, the order spoke of incentive marks allocation to in-service doctors.

The demonstrators raised slogans against the Kaloji Narayan Rao Health University, Vice-Chancellor, Karunakar for allegedly misleading the government in this regard.

General Secretary, Telangana Government Doctors Association, Chandra Bhanu said that several unresolved issues related to doctors in the state had been lying pending for a long time, with the state government paying little attention to them.

“The contribution of medical professionals to the separate Telangana movement was immense. They hoped much from the TRS government but they are being given a raw deal by the same party,” he told the Hindu.

Calling the Government Orders 21 and 22 ‘unlawful’, Dr. Bhanu reiterated that doctors across the state were opposing the guidelines stated in the orders.

Condemning the role of V-C of KNR Health University, the doctors wanted the government to reconsider its stand and not link PG in-service quota to incentive marks.

They demanded that PG seats in clinical and non-clinical wings be filled by the service quota. They threatened to intensify their agitation if the government did not comply with their demands reports the Hindu.

In an earlier story done by Medical Dialogues, it was reported that in-service qualifiers of NEET PG 2018 were wondering whether their selection would be done by weightage of scores or reservation meant for them. The apex education regulator had earlier in the year issued guidelines that the admissions would be done with 15 percent weightage. However, protests by in-service doctors led to the council putting its decision on hold.

Read also: Telangana: 30 percent state quota demanded by in-service doctors in PG admissions

Meanwhile, the Telangana government told Hyderabad High Court on Monday that the issued GO 21 and 22 by it on March 20^th were in accordance with the guidelines set by the Medical Council of India for awarding weightage marks in place of reservation for in-service candidates. The government further stated that earmarking of 50 pc PG seats in government medical colleges to the All India quota had also been done, as per MCI norms.

Special counsel of TS, A Sanjeev Kumar made this submission before a division bench of Justice K Vijaya Lakshmi and Justice ACJ Ramesh Ranganathan who were dealing with petitions filed by Dr. M Vasurchana Reddy and 12 others, challenging above stated Government orders 21 and 22.

The petitioners sought directions to authorities to make admissions to MD/MS/PGdegree/diploma courses as per GO 27 issued by state medical and health department reported TNIE.