Govt docs meet FM, demand review of 7th PC recommendations

Government doctors have met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and demanded revision of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations.
Representatives of the Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA) and JACSDO (Joint Action Council of Service Doctor Organisation) met Jaitley yesterday and put forward their demands saying, the recommendations are "discriminating to doctors".
"The Minister listened to our issues patiently and attentively. He was appraised especially for NPA issue. He showed his concern about our salary being relatively reduced by 7 CPC.
"He assured us that our representation is being directed to Secretary Expenditure for re-evaluation. He also assured, if any concern still remains pending in the matter of NPA (and other issues), it shall be scrutinised and considered by forthcoming 'Anomalies Committee' which shall be appointed hereafter," said FORDA in a statement issued today.

FORDA and JACSDO have strongly been opposing the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission and have written to the Prime Minister and Health Minister.
"When the 7th CPC was constituted we doctors were very hopeful that our demands will be looked after, which is increasing Non-Practising Allowance (NPA) to 40 per cent from existent 25 per cent, instead it has been reduced to 20 per cent.

"The basic pay and NPA were merged together while calculating House Rental Allowance (HRA) earlier, but this has now been omitted and HRA will be calculated only with basic pay resulting in less than the desired salary," said FORDA President Dr Pankaj Solanki.

The doctor's body also demanded uniform pay scales, night shift allowances which currently exists for nursing staff in government hospitals and the formulation of a uniform central residency scheme for the resident doctors of India.
FORDA is an umbrella organisation of 15,000 resident doctors across 41 government hospitals in the capital.
Asked about negotiations with the Maharashtra government,
MARD's general secretary Dr Parthiv Sanghavi said, "When we contacted Medical Education Minister Girish Mahajan regarding the same, we got just two minutes with him."
"Nobody is giving the resident doctors any written assurance, hence they are not convinced. As long as the resident doctors are not convinced, they would not resume the duty," he said.

A senior official from the Medical Education department said, "We have assured them of deploying some 400 security personnel by April 1, but the resident doctors are not convinced by it."
"They want it immediately but as the budget session (of Maharashtra Assembly) is on, without informing the House, government cannot take any major decision," the official told