Odisha doctors to protest against new cadre rules

‘Rules been passed by State Cabinet without consulting OMSA’

The Odisha Medical Service Association (OMSA), an organisation of government doctors, has decided to protest from October 2 against the recently proposed cadre rules.

According to OMSA president Nirakar Bhatta, the agitation will also highlight several other demands of government doctors. “But our immediate demand would be roll back of new cadre rules that has been passed by State Cabinet without consulting the OMSA,” said Dr Bhatta. he sais the details of the mode of agitation would be decided soon.

The OMSA has already written to the Chief Minster, the Health Minister and the Chief Secretary for their intervention on the issue. It has demanded formation of a special committee to look into the objections made by it before implementing the new cadre rules.

As per the new norms, it has been decided to divide government doctors into three cadres. These are specialist cadre, public health cadre and general duty cadre. In the specialist and public health cadres, a junior doctor will get promoted to senior doctor post in minimum five years. For general cadres, the time span is minimum six years. For promotion to rank of joint director, a general cadre physician will need minimum 10 years, while for specialist cadres it will be at least eight years. For promotion to ranks of joint director and additional director, general cadre doctors will need minimum of five years while public health and specialist cadres it is at least two years.

The OMSA has opposed this cadre rule change proposal. According to Dr Bhatta, all government doctors get appointed through a single selection process, so there should not be any disparity in their promotion. “Because of this new promotion rule, young doctors with only MBBS degree will not get interested to join government jobs leading to continuation of vacancies. The new rules will also check promotion of several doctors despite vacancies in higher posts only because they have not completed stipulated years of service”, he added.

The OMSA also demanded State government to provide 15% marks to contractual doctors in the Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) examination. Around 800 doctors are now serving State government on contract basis. The association ha demanded their regularisation.