Teachers threaten to boycott med exams in Maharashtra

The Maharashtra State Medical Teachers Association (MSMTA) has threatened to boycott the Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) and Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) exams of universities across the state if all their demands are not met.

About 2,400 medical teachers from all 14 medical colleges across the state plan to stage a protest, demanding non-practising allowance as per the sixth pay commission, time-bound promotions, and financial and service benefits for those lecturers whose services have been regularised by the state government.

According to MSMTA, the state government has a month’s time to accept the demands, failing which the medical teachers will neither supervise nor correct MBBS/BDS exam papers.
“The rules and regulations have been in existence for a long time now, but only on paper. Implementation is lacking and we want the government to execute these regulations,” said Dr NN Ramraje, president of MSMTA.

In December 2011, MSMTA members had gone on a month-long protest for the same demands. As per a government resolution (GR) issued on March 27, 2008, the non-practising allowance (NPA) given to medical teachers working in state medical colleges in urban and rural areas was increased from
25% to 35% and 50% respectively. However teachers still continue to get an NPA of just 25%, said the teachers.

“After this GR, the sixth pay commission was implemented in Maharashtra. However, medical teachers from four medical colleges -  BJ Medical College, Pune; Grant Medical College, Mumbai, and Government Medical College, Nagpur and Aurangabad, are still getting 25% NPA on the basic pay of the fifth pay scale,” said Dr Shivaji Sukre, executive president. “Now we have heard that the state government is reducing NPA from 35% to 25% again.”