Maharashtra: Govt defers mandatory rural stint rule for doctors by one year

In a major relief to thousands of PG (post graduate) medical aspirants in state, the state government has decided to push the mandatory one year rural service bond to the next academic year of 2019-20. The state government issued a clarification on the same.

In October 2017, the state government had come out with a government resolution (GR) stating that PG medical aspirants who have not completed their year long rural stint bond will not be allowed to appear for PG NEET that happens in January 2018.

Close to 5,000 students would have become ineligible for admissions for post graduate or super specialty programmes for academic 2018-19.

Students while protesting had said that in their petition that since the GR of the government came only a few months before the PG (NEET) which is scheduled in January 2018, it should not be implemented for the current batch.

Muzaffar Khan, a parent of medical student, said, "We met all the higher authorities from the dean of our child's college to the minister level. Almost two thousand students petition and few who went to the court were able to put a pressure on the government to postpone this GR for next batch rather than current one."