Pensioner Doctors meeting turns into Protest Rally; launches state vide agitation against state government
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ March 30,2025
Pensioner doctors of the state including retired PCMS doctors and medical dental teachers today organized a massive get together in Patiala under the banner”The Pensioner Doctors Association, Punjab ” launching a state vide agitation against the Punjab Government for the injustice being meted out to the Senior Citizen Pensioners including the retired doctors with decision to organize similar protests in other districts of the state and in coordination with all other organizations of pensioners and employees with similar grievances.
Addressing the meeting, state President of the Association Dr. D.C.Sharma along with Vice President Dr D.S.Bhullar, General Secretary Dr. Surinder Singla, Treasurer Dr. S.B.Pandhi and Senior leaders Dr Gurmeet Singh from Amritsar and Dr. Makhan Singh from Sangrur, demanded that the Punjab Government should stop wasting money on hollow advertisements and should rather release the arrears of pensioners in total and in one go without any delay instead of releasing the arrears in 42 months till the year 2028.
According to the Association leaders, the state Government is withholding the 6th Punjab Pay Commission arrears of 66 months, from January 2016 to June 2021 on the pretext of poor financial condition of state, whereas the same has been paid to bureaucracy and the state judiciary several years back from same state Funds.
They have also demanded 18% interest on the delayed payments stressing that the Government too, charges interest on the Commuted Pension, then why not the legitimate money of pensioners, being used by Government.
The Association has alleged that the Punjab Government has wrongly the revised pension w.e.f. January, 2016 by considering DA at 113%, whereas it was admissible at 125%. Demanding its rectification by using the best option ideally for every pensioner out of the three options i.e. first being fixation with DA at 125%, as has been done by Union Government, secondly by application of multiplication factor of 2.59 as has been done in case of Punjab Government employees and third by applying the formula of Notional Pay Fixation, but Government did not implement these options till now.
Pensioner Doctors meeting turns into Protest Rally; launches state vide agitation against state government. The other demands of the pensioner doctors include Cashless Medical Treatment and Diagnostic Tests (OPD & Indoor) to pensioners, at every Hospital and Diagnostic Centre in the country and also abroad without any upper limit. It also demanded grant of full pension after 25 years of service as recommended by the 5th Punjab Pay Commission but the Government notified it only in 2011 and denied this benefit to those retired before this notification, though the pay commission report was to be implemented w.e.f. January, 2006.
