Govt. doctors meet FM: Demand review of 7th Pay Commission recommendations
Government doctors have met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to demand for a revision of the recommendations made by the 7th Pay Commission. The representatives of Joint Action Council of Service Doctor Organization(JACSDO) and the Federation of Resident Doctors Association(FORDA) met the Minister on June 20.
The demands were raised mentioning that the recommendations of the Pay Commission are discriminating to doctors.
In a statement issued on June 21, FORDA said that the minister listened to the doctors’ concerns patiently and that he was especially appraised on the NPA issue. The minister has expressed his concern about the salary being relatively cut down by the 7 CPC. According to FORDA, the minister has also assured that their representation is being directed to the Secretary Expenditure for re-evaluation, and also that if any concern still remains with NPA and other issues, it will be scrutinized and considered by the to-be-appointed ‘Anomalies Committee’.
Both FORDA and JACSDO have expressed their strong opposition to the recommendations before, they have even written to the Health Minister and the Prime Minister.
Dr. Pankaj Solank, FORDA President said that the doctors were hopeful when the 7th CPC was constituted, thinking that their demands will be looked after. One of the primary demands was raising Non-Practising Allowance(NPA) to 40 percent from the current 25 percent. However, the NPA has been brought down to 20 percent.
He added that earlier, the basic pay and NPA were clubbed together for calculating House Rental Allowance(HRA). However, this is now omitted-HRA is to be calculated only with basic pay, something that will result in less than the desired salary.
Concerns over the NPA weren’t the only thing that was raised by the doctor’s body.
Other demands made included uniform pay scales, a uniform central residency scheme for resident doctors in India and also night shift allowances. At present, night shift allowances exist for nursing staff of government hospitals.
FORDA has 15,000 resident doctors under the organization across 41 government hospitals in Delhi. JACSDO on the other hand represents 11 organized and unorganized Central Health Services(CHS), Indian Ordinance Health Services(IOHS), Indian Railway Medical Services(IRMS), MCD,NDMC, Delhi administration and ESIC.
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