Tamil Nadu government has constituted a committee comprising three directors of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Medical Education and Research, and Medical and Rural Health Services to look into some of the demands of government doctors associations, including a long-pending demand to review Government Order 354 on pay and promotional opportunities.
The committee would analyse the requests of the associations in-depth. The Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine would compile the views of the committee and submit a detailed report with specific remarks to the State government, Health Secretary Gagandeep Singh Bedi said in an official communication dated January 29.
He said that the various associations of government doctors jointly submitted a number of requests. This included review of G.O. 354 dated October 23, 2009 regarding Dynamic Assured Career Progression (DACP) by reducing the number of years for time-bound promotions / pay from the present 8, 15, 17 and 20 years that is pending since 2017.
They had also requested corrections to a G.O. 293 dated June 18, 2021 on grant of allowances to doctors — to delete a sentence on “There is no justification to advancement of DACP”, remove categorisation of scarce and non-scarce specialities and to remove categorisation of difficult and non-difficult areas for MBBS doctors and to place components of increments under a separate sub-clause.
Based on the joint request of various doctors associations, the government issued an amendment to G.O. 293 by removing the categorisation of scarce and non-scarce specialities for sanction of allowances to doctors holding post graduate degree/diploma, the letter said.
The committee was constituted to look into the other demands of the doctors associations, he said. In a statement issued, the Service Doctors and Post Graduates Association (SDPGA) welcomed the move to constitute the committee. “Review of G.O. 354 on pay and promotional opportunities is our long-pending demand. The review is pending since 2017. The constitution of the committee is the first step towards this,” A. Ramalingam, general secretary, SDPGA, said.
