Heated exchange between treasury and opposition benches were witnessed in Himachal Pradesh Assembly today on the issue of large number of posts of paramedical staff and doctors lying vacant in government health institutions.
Replying to a question of B K Chauhan (BJP), Health Minister Kaul Singh Thakur said out of total 157 sanctioned post of doctors, 28 post were laying vacant and blamed the previous BJP rule for not training the requisite staff to overcome the shortage of staff.
"There was shortage of 846 medical health workers as efforts were not done by the last rule to train the sufficient manpower and now the government would fill the vacant posts of doctors and paramedical staff, keeping in view the financial constraints," Thakur said.
Thakur said that during the tenure of BJP government, the then Health Minister Rajiv Bindal ignored the training programmes for the paramedical health workers and nurses.
Agitated by the accusations made by the minister, Bindal said that government works in continuity and efforts were made to fill the posts of paramedical staff through Rogi Kalayan Samitti during his tenure.
Bindal said that despite the efforts of the previous BJP government, the Minister was trying to put entire blame on him for vacant posts.
Bindal wanted to know that how many doctors were recruited in the last government but minister replied that he should ask a separate question to get this information.
The BJP MLA said that since the minister has named him in the House, he should give details that how the last government deprived the department from recruiting sufficient staff.
This lead to an altercation between the treasury and opposition benches and the Speaker had to intervene to pacify the members from both sides.
In reply to another question, the Minister said that a 50-bedded hospital was upgraded to 100 beds by the previous BJP government without making provision of sufficient staff and now the matter would be taken up in the Cabinet meeting for upgradation of the hospital in a phased manner.
