Medical Dental faculty demands allowances / perks as suggested to The Pay Commission
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in
The faculty of Government medical and dental colleges in Punjab has urged the state Government to approve the suggestions in Toto given by the Punjab State Medical and Dental Teachers Association (PSMDTA) to the Sixth Punjab Pay Commission for fixation of pay and all other allowances / perks of the medical and dental teachers along with some extra perks including special annual increments keeping in view the extraordinary services being provided by the doctors during the ongoing Covid pandemic for the last about two years and also accept and implement all the long pending demands of the medical and dental teachers.
According to Dr. DS Bhullar, State General Secretary of PSMDTA, although medical and dental colleges are teaching institutions, but no benefit of UGC scales is being given under this pay structure and in Punjab Medical Education Services cadre the promotion avenues are very limited.
There is strong apprehension in the cadre that the State Government will not consider non practicing allowance (NPA) as part of the basic pay on recommendation of the Sixth Punjab Pay Commission which is total injustice and unacceptable to the medical and dental faculty. Since years NPA is being considered as part of the basic pay for all intents and purposes including retirement benefits, for calculation of all allowances including house rent allowance and is admissible to all medical and dental teachers at the rate of 25% of basic pay. In fact NPA is a misnomer and it should be replaced by Compensatory Pay as it being paid to the doctors to compensate for much longer duration of studies, longer working hours and arduous nature of their duties and to compensate for the relatively less promotional prospects. It is very unfortunate that the rate of NPA granted to doctors has dwindled to present level of 25% from earlier higher rates of 50% and 30% of the basic pay, said Dr. Bhullar.
At present a meagre Academic Allowance of Rs. 250 per month is being given to the doctors with postgraduate medical qualifications, actually working as specialists and the same needs to be enhanced to a minimum of Rs. 10, 000 per month or at par with the our Haryana and Delhi counterparts keeping in view the present cost of medical books, subscription rates of national and international journals and cost of attending medical workshops and conferences as the medical teachers are expected to keep their knowledge up to date and they need to be treated separately from other categories of non-teaching medical specialists in this regard, said Dr. Bhullar.
Also, like the medical and dental teachers serving under Haryana Government (PGI Rohtak) being given Rs. One Lakh per year as Learning Resource Initiative for updating the academic and research work, the same benefit is also required to be extended to the Punjab Government medical and dental teachers with a minimum of Rupees two lakh per year to satisfy the academic and research parameters of the National Medical Commission if the state Government seriously requires research oriented working in medical and dental colleges.
Similarly, fixed medical allowance (FMA) presently Rs. 500/- per month is insufficient for all categories of the government employees keeping in view the rising prices all types of medicines and related service and needs to be fixed to a minimum at Rs. 2000/- per month.
Further, the doctors of all specialties are persistently exposed to a variety of infections, radiations and other professional risks while performing their duties which affects quality of their life with higher morbidity and morbidity chances. Hence, Risk Allowance should be given to each doctor irrespective of the specialty at a minimum rate of Rs. 5000/- per month.
Medical Dental faculty demands allowances / perks as suggested to The Pay Commission. Apart from this, the association also demands the other allowances as proposed to the Sixth Pay Commission as follows:
– Uniform & Equipment Allowance: The doctors on duty are supposed to wear apron and other protective wearing during work. Also almost every doctor working in medical colleges has to purchase his / her own equipment like stethoscope, ophthalmoscope and a variety of other gadgets for clinical check-up of patients. To compensate for this, Uniform & Equipment Allowance of Rs. 5000 per month should be given to each faculty member so that quality of equipment is not compromised.
– Higher Education Allowance: Some doctors during service may opt for higher courses and qualification or may be sent on some specialized training programme to enrich knowledge in the interest of patients and undergraduate postgraduate teaching and such doctors should be entitled to Higher Education Allowance, minimum of Rs. 5000 per month.
– Mobile Phone / Internet Utility Allowance: Keeping in view the present rates of tariff on mobile phone services and increasing utility of the mobile and internet services for the purpose of official duties by the government officials and officers, the Mobile Phone Allowance of Rs, 500/- presently, should be enhanced to a minimum of Rs. 2000/- in case of medical and dental teachers.
– Transport Allowance: The medical teachers in AIIMS New Delhi are being paid Rs. 6080/-(Assistant Professor) to 13,300/- (Professor) as transport allowance as revised under the 6th Pay Commission. But in Punjab state, the medical and dental teachers are not being given this benefit in spite of the fact that the nature of duties in AIIMS as well as in medical dental colleges in Punjab is similar. The medical and dental teachers must be given the benefit of Transport Allowance with a minimum of Rs. 10,000/- (ten thousand) to all categories of the teaching faculty.
– Postmortem &Medico Legal Examination Allowance: Postmortem and medico-legal examination allowance or perks are being given in some states to the doctors and other staff involved in postmortem examination. Postmortem perks are being given to the Class IV employees in Government Medical College Amritsar but this benefit is not being enjoyed by the doctors working in state government medical colleges.
The postmortem examination duty in fact is a very hazardous and tedious work with great risk of exposure to infected and unhygienic conditions in the mortuaries and at the same the field of operation by way of opening all the body cavities is much larger in comparison with operations in other fields of surgery. As a result majority of the doctors are not willing for this unpleasant job of postmortem examination but doing the same in larger public interest with self-exposure to a variety of infections and dangerous health hazards.
To encourage the doctors and to compensate them for this type of hazardous and tedious duty, they should be awarded with some perks as Postmortem Risk allowance of Rs. 1000/- per case and Rs. 200/- per case of medico legal examination.
June 6,2021
