Guwahati, June 9 : The Assam cabinet today decided to increase the salaries of teachers in the state’s three medical colleges, in line with the revised All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) recommendations.
As reported in The Telegraph, doctors teaching in Assam’s medical colleges were taking home salaries far below their counterparts in places such as Calcutta and New Delhi, creating a lot of resentment among them, apart from putting the government in a spot in terms of disallowing government doctors from practising in private nursing homes.
Low salaries, coupled with immense work pressure, had also led to a number of senior professors opting for VRS, which it is feared would lead to an unprecedented shortage of teaching staff in the state’s medical colleges.
The revised payscales are to be implemented with retrospective effect from January 1, 2006, while dearness allowance would be paid with effect from April 1, 2009.
The UGC and AICTE benefits declared today would also go to teaching staff of the Assam Agricultural University, the state’s Dental College in Guwahati, the state’s nursing colleges, the Ayurvedic College and the Pharmacy Institute in Dibrugarh.
Significantly, and in line with norms elsewhere, doctors in Assam’s medical colleges would from now on also be allowed to avail of a non-practising allowance, which would be 25 per cent of their basic pay, “provided they undertake not to engage themselves in private practice”.
Only those who did not opt for non-practising allowance would be allowed to undertake private practice in nursing homes beyond duty hours.
“Today’s decision is indeed a very good one,” said Dr N.N. Ganguly, general secretary of Gauhati Medical College Teachers’ Association, “and it will go a long way in motivating the faculty members of our medical colleges to provide dedicated service to their patients”.
There had been no revision of payscales for such doctors since 1999, Ganguly said. “This had led to a lot of frustration among our senior doctors forcing them to seek voluntary retirement and undertake private practice.” Dr M.M. Deka, principal of Gauhati Medical College and Hospital added: “The new pay packages will create a lot of enthusiasm among the younger doctors as they will now take home far better pay than what they have received so far.”
Ganguly said while the government had not committed anything on the doctors’ other demands, including overtime hours, academic and holiday allowances, they had learnt that it had constituted a high-powered committee headed by the state chief secretary to consider these issues “in due course of time”.
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