Rajasthan: After seven days of protests, doctors finally call off strike

After seven days of protests, the Rajasthan doctors finally called off their strike on Sunday night. The strike ended after a detailed discussion between government officials and a four-member team from the Rajasthan Doctors’ Association (ARISDA).

Earlier, the doctors went on strike with a 33-point demand. Both, the government and ARISDA came to a compromise and a draft was signed.

The meeting started at the secretariat around 2 pm. In the meeting, health minister Kalicharan Saraf and officials, including ACS (Finance) DB Gupta, Principal Secretary (Home) Deepak Upreti, Principal Secretary (Health) Veenu Gupta, secretary (Medical Education) Anand Kumar and Secretary (Budget) Manju Rajpal were present.

The meeting that went on for around nine hours, at one point appeared to have failed again. But around 11:15 pm, Saraf announced that agreement was signed. Soon after, ARISDA president Dr Ajay Chaudhary came out of the meeting room and said, “A positive agreement on 33 point demand has come out and right from the moment doctors will come back to their duties at hospitals.”

“As per the agreement government promise to execute all our demands. The only demand, to run hospitals in single shift, will be referred to chief minister and she will take a call on it,” Dr Jagdish Modi, coordinator of ARISDA said.