Representatives of the Telangana Junior Doctors Association (TJUDA) have threatened to boycott duties from Friday demanding the revocation of GO 155 relating to in-service quota. Protests against the quota were held at major government medical colleges in the State on Monday.
As per the quota, 20% of seats in post-graduate (PG) clinical broad specialities, 30% of seats in PG pre and para clinical specialities for degree and diploma courses are reserved for in-service candidates in government medical colleges.
Students pursuing MBBS and PG courses are known as junior doctors while medical officers who work at Primary Health Centres (PHCs) are in-service candidates. Medical officers who work at PHCs for two years in tribal localities, or three years in rural localities are eligible for the in-service quota.
The medical officers had earlier said that they got to know about the GO 155 through the prospectus issued by Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS) on Friday. Counselling for the PG seats could begin soon.
TJUDA representatives said that they oppose the in-service quota. Stating that NEET-PG is a competitive examination, they said that service points (weightage) are already given to in-service candidates, taking their ranks higher. “Providing special reservation quota to these candidates will lead to bias towards the regular candidates who strive for years to get PG seats in this competitive world,” said the junior doctors.
Currently, 50% of the PG seats in the State are part of the national pool. Students from across the country are eligible to compete for the seats. With the new GO, some seats in the remaining 50% could go to the in-service candidates.
“This further makes it tough for regular students to get a PG seat. Some of the aspirants invest two to three years to bag a seat. What would happen to them if they cannot get a seat in a speciality they want despite getting a good rank,” asked N. Karthik, general secretary of TJUDA-Gandhi Medical College unit.
