The Hindu : New Delhi News : NDMC doctors getting a raw deal

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Oct 23, 2007
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New Delhi

New Delhi

NDMC doctors getting a raw deal

Manisha Jha

NEW DELHI: Contractual doctors appointed from time to time against vacant posts by the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) in the capacity of specialists and general duty medical officers have been getting lower emoluments compared with their counterparts employed in the Delhi Government, Central Government Health Scheme and Municipal Corporation of Delhi-run hospitals for the past several years. This is in violation of the office order of the Delhi Government’s Health and Family Welfare Department passed in 2001, allowing payment of the same scale, allowances and benefits to contractual specialist and medical officers as their counterparts in Delhi Government hospitals.

According to doctors appointed on contract with the NDMC, they are paid the basic pay as per the Delhi Government order. However, other allowances are paid at the rate of 75 per cent only and the house rent allowance is not paid at all, which is completely in violation of the order.

Over 25 resignations

Due to this discrepancy over the past few years, over 25 doctors have resigned from the NDMC and joined other hospitals where they are now paid better emoluments. This has led to a shortage of doctors in the NDMC.

Says an NDMC official: “It’s the new generation of doctors joining the NDMC who are most affected by this non-compliance of orders by the NDMC. Despite dedicating over ten years of their life to their medical studies and practice, these doctors are not granted pay, allowances and other benefits at par with contractual doctors practising in Delhi Government hospitals and so they have no choice left but to resign and take up better paying jobs elsewhere.”

“Even the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, which is comparatively cash-strapped and a less pampered body than the NDMC, still manages to pay their contractual doctors over Rs.6,000 more than the NDMC does as per Delhi Government orders,” he added.

To stop the exodus of doctors from the NDMC and invite the best available talent in the market, junior doctors were assured by senior NDMC officials to take up the matter of granting allowances at par with Delhi Government contractual doctors.

Though about five months have lapsed since the assurance, nothing has been done. This has led to resentment among junior contractual doctors appointed in the NDMC who continue to resign. “The move for adoption of the same pattern of calculation of consolidated salary of contract doctors in the NDMC as in Delhi Government hospitals is needed as it will help in raising the standards of NDMC hospitals and also avoid repeated attempts on the part of the administration to fill up the vacant posts arising out of frequent resignation tendered by the doctors,” explains a senior NDMC official.

Asked to comment upon the demand of junior doctors on contract with the NDMC, the Co-ordinator of NDMC’s Medical and Public Health Department, M. K. Rai, said: “The NDMC Chairman, Secretary and Council members are equally concerned about this disparity and are viewing it seriously to overcome this demand of contractual doctors. The NDMC will try its best to give the contractual doctors pay and allowances at par with Central Government Health Scheme doctors and Delhi Government doctors.”

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