After a long wait, the Government medical colleges of Uttarakhand would get permanent faculty members as the Uttarakhand Medical Services Selection Board (UKMSSB) would take interviews to select 138 faculty members from January 28. The chairman of the UMSSB, Dr D S Rawat told The Pioneer that interviews would be held for 138 posts in 24 disciplines from January 28. He said that the UMSSB has set up four boards who would interview 40 candidates in a day.
Dr Rawat added that 380 candidates have been shortlisted for interview out of total 417 applications. The Chairman claimed that all preparation for holding the interviews to select Assistant Professors for the government medical colleges has been made.
The Chairman accepted that some posts in reserved posts in some disciplines are likely to remain vacant as less candidates then the number of vacancies have applied.
In Uttarakhand there are three government medical colleges, the Government Doon Medical College, Medical College Haldwani and Veer Chandra Singh Garhwali Medical College Srinagar.
In absence of permanent appointments for last many years most of the faculty members in these medical colleges are working on contract.
In such a condition these medical colleges are marred by absenteeism, frequent changes and other problems associated with contractual employees.
The appointment of permanent faculty members in these colleges is expected to bring stability in teaching positions and improvement in academic environment.
To fill large number of vacant positions of faculty members in the government medical colleges the UKMSSB started a drive to fill 138 posts of assistant professors in 24 disciplines in September this year.
However the open recruitment decision was resented by the Assistant Professors working on contract in these medical colleges.
Their contention was that they were selected after a proper process in which every criterion like reservation was followed and for more than three years they had worked hard to ensure the medical colleges got the mandatory permission from the Medical Council of India (MCI).
Some of these contractual faculty members went to the High Court (HC) on which it issued a stay on the recruitment process last month.
The HC however vacated the stay in November last year and gave green signal to the UKMSSB to go ahead with process of selection.