Karam Prakash
Patiala, August 28
Despite having extended the application date twice, the Department of Medical Education failed to get the required number of candidates for new recruitment to various posts in medical colleges across the state.
Private sector offers better emoluments
The private sector is said to be giving more salaries than the government. This attraction is also keeping specialists away from joining government-run hospitals
A cardiologist, who had joined after the 2020 notification and was posted at Government Medical College, Patiala, has left his job. He has joined a private hospital in Ludhiana where he is getting four times the salary of the government job
The root cause of the poor response, say experts, lies in the huge difference between total emoluments of new entrants and their counterparts who had joined before July 2020. The Finance Department had downgraded their pay scale, a notification regarding which was issued by the state government in 2020.
In the face of the pay disparity, 19 specialists and super-specialists, who had joined after the notification, have already left or are thinking of leaving their jobs. These specialist doctors are getting almost half the salary of their counterparts who had joined before the notification.
A new Assistant Professor gets around Rs 1.19 lakh per month while those who joined the department before the notification got Rs 2.14 lakh per month at the time of their joining.
Doctors said they should either get pay scale 13 of the Union Government instead of 11 as fixed by the state government or they should get all benefits mentioned under scale 11.
A specialist doctor, who joined after the notification, said: “Fixing a lower pay grade and pay level under the central pay commission is creating two different salary structures for employees on the same post and performing the same duties. The said arrangement is arbitrary and against the natural law of justice.”
Meanwhile, Dr Akashdeep, Joint Director, Research and Medical Education, said: “We have not received any representation from the doctors. However, we have already written to the Finance Department to resolve the issue at the earliest.”
