The badly battered health services of the State by the work boycott call of Government doctors limped back to normalcy on Wednesday. This was due to the fact that the Provincial Medical Health Services (PMHS)—the association of doctors of State health services—called off its agitation after assurance of Chief Minister Harish Rawat that disparity in Departmental Assured Career Progression (DACP) scheme would be removed from April 1.
The doctors were on a two hour work boycott call from February 01 and were threatening to go on strike from February 12, if there demand of complete implementation of DACP is not accepted by the state government. On the initiative of State Health Minister, Surendra Singh Negi, a delegation of PMHS was invited for talks with the state CM on late Tuesday night.
In the meeting high power committee headed by chief Secretary also took part. In the meeting it was decided that all doctors of State health services would be extended benefit of DACP. There were some objection from PMHS regarding the date of implementation of the scheme but later they accepted the Government’s offer of implementing scheme from April 1.
The PMHS called off its agitation after the meeting and the doctors resumed their duties in right earnest from Wednesday morning. A beaming General Secretary (GS) of PMHS, Dr Naresh Napalchayal told The Pioneer that all the doctors are happy with the decision as the disparity in DACP is now removed. He said that all the doctors of the state health services would be benefited by the decision of State Government. It is worth mentioning here that State Government had implemented the DACP last year but restricted it to new doctors only prompting the old serving doctors to agitate. The DACP entails benefit of assured increase in the grade pays of the doctors after 4, 9, 13 and 20 years of the service irrespective of whether they get promotions or not.