The state government is keen to implement a plan where students must complete a two-year stint in rural government hospitals.
Despite fierce protests from more than 1,500 medical students, the state government is keen to implement a plan where students must complete a two-year stint in rural government hospitals.
Students failing to serve hospitals in rural areas will also lose their surety amount of Rs1 lakh, which was paid on enrollment.
The medical department of the state government issued a government resolution (GR) resuming the old compulsion.
“This rule has existed for a long time now, but wasn’t implemented in the last four years due to the scarcity of vacant posts in government hospitals. Now, since the number of vacant posts have reached requirement levels, we have resumed the scheme,” said a top-level source in the medical education department.
AM Khan, principal secretary, medical education department, reiterated the government’s wish to implement the scheme very firmly. “We spend nearly Rs4 lakh on each student annually against a fee of Rs18,000. If the government expects two years of their services with a salary of nearly Rs16,000, what’s wrong in it?”
He said that the GR has removed a few lacunae from the old scheme and made it more student-friendly. “This time the dispensation will be based on their preferences. Secondly, if there are more doctors than posts, they will be accommodated on a remuneration basis,” he added.
He said that barring municipal and council hospitals, government hospitals require nearly 900 doctors every year. The number of students with MBBS degrees passing out are the same as the number of doctors required. “The recovery of Rs1 lakh, in case of failure of joining government service, will be recovered from a student’s immovable property too, if required,” said another source from the department.
However, a batch of nearly 1,500 students, who passed out this year, has challenged the GR in the Bombay High Court. “The government has not added students from private medical colleges to this, though till recently, 50 per cent of the seats in them were government-owned. Secondly, our demand is to let us complete our post-graduation degree without any hassle, after which no student will have problems in opting for government service,” said Dr Kapil Palekar, one of the petitioners.
The Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) has also supported the new doctors. Dr Yoganand Patil, spokesperson of the association, said, “Advertisements released recently by the MPSC to fill up posts in government hospitals have received a huge response, with nearly 7,000 applications. Why is the government not electing candidates from them?”
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