Ad-hocism coupled with official apathy has ensured that despite the prospect of being paid the best salary, the medicos are not interested to work as teaching faculty in the Veer Chandra Singh Garhwali Government Institute of Medical Science and Research, Srinagar (Garhwal).
Efforts to make regular appointments over the past few years having proved futile, the medical education department perforce resorted to contractual appointments. However, the same failure continues to stare them in the face as regards the faculty retention in the college set up in 2008 to provide medical facility to the people living in the Garhwal hills.
The attrition rate of faculty is so high that most of the faculty appointed on contractual basis leave the college in a space of just six months.
With only 56 faculty members left against sanctioned posts of 99, the situation has come such a grim pass that the recognition from Medical Council of India (MCI) would elude it for a long time to come.
Interestingly, the Uttarakhand Government has made special arrangements to ensure that higher salaries are paid to the faculty members appointed in the Srinagar-based medical college to compensate for its location-related disadvantage.
In the recent recruit advertisement for the contractual appointments for the posts of seven professors, 12 associate professors and 26 assistant professors, the difference in salaries offered is quite apparent.
While in a medical college located in the plains, a contractual professor gets an average monthly salary of Rs 1.5 lakh, Rs 171600 is offered to a professor interested to work in Srinagar Medical College. In subjects like Radio diagnosis, the Srinagar Medical College offers whooping Special Allowance–referred to as Srinagar Allowance-of Rs 1.40 lakh per month taking the total monthly package of the professor to Rs 311600. Similarly, the assistant professor in the radio diagnosis department would be paid Srinagar allowance of Rs 68000 per month.
In the anaesthesia department too, the medical college is offering lucrative special allowances.
A walk in interview to fill 45 faculty positions in Srinagar Medical College would be held at Chander Nagar-based office of the Medical education department on October 4. However, given the past experiences, it is unlikely that the Srinagar Medical College would be able to fill all the vacancies despite most lucrative of salaries being on offer.
“The post of the professor in department of radiology, Srinagar is likely to remain vacant and the college would deem itself lucky if it is able to recruit even one assistant professor in the department. Instead of working in Srinagar, a radiologist would prefer to work in a city like Dehradun or Haridwar where they are in great demand,’’ said one senior doctor working in the health department.
The principal of Srinagar Medical College, Dr CMS Rawat said while talking to The Pioneer that the medical college would be able to get sufficient faculty.
He, however, admitted that after the Government Doon Medical College had been set up many faculty members of Srinagar had switched to it.
The director Medical Education Department Dr Ashutosh Sayana also sounded confident that better packages would be able to attract medicos to join Srinagar Medical College.
He informed that after interviews are held in Srinagar on October 4 walk in interviews would be held for GDMC and Haldwani Medical College on October 8 and 10 respectively.