Doctors will be less motivated to join and continue in government services if 7th Pay Commission is implemented, suggests consensus among doctors in Delhi.
According to Dr Pankaj Solanki, President, Federation of Resident Doctors' Association (FORDA), when 7th Pay Commission led by Justice A.K Mathur was constituted last year, doctors were quite hopeful and they were looking forward to increase in 'Non-Practicing Allowance' from 25 percent to 40 percent.
“But now that the recommendations are close to implementation, it is distressing to note that the allowance has been reduced to 20 percent. Further, the basic pay and NPA have been merged together while calculating House Rental Allowance (HRA). However, this has now been omitted and HRA will be calculated only with basic pay resulting in less than the desired salary," he says. FORDA is an umbrella organisation of 15,000 resident doctors across 41 government hospitals in the capital.
It has been a long-standing demand of doctors in government hospitals to increase the NPA, points our Dr Solanki so that they can earn at par with their counterparts in private services. Some doctors are of the view that government hospitals will have a tough time in retaining doctors now. “Well-qualified doctors will eventually become less interested in joining government jobs. They would prefer joining private hospitals and this will deteriorate the quality of medical services delivered in government sector," points out Dr Ravinder Chauhan, General Secretary, FORDA.
The doctors are further apprehensive of widening of pay gap in private and government sector. “For instance, the pay for an assistant professor at Government Medical College in Delhi starts with Rs 85,000 per month while the pay of a junior consultant (equivalent in degree and position) in a private hospital in Delhi is Rs 2-Rs 2.5 lakhs per month,” adds Dr Chauhan.
Source - iamin
