SRINAGAR: Nearly 800 employees appointed under academic arrangement basis during the past 9 years in Government Medical College (GMC) Srinagar have received support from the college principal. A senior official told Kashmir Reader that Principal, GMC Srinagar, Dr Parvaiz Shah has sent a detailed recommendation letter to the Financial Commissioner, Health and Medical Education Department, suggesting regularisation of doctors and paramedical staff who have been working on academic arrangement basis since 2011.
Those who will benefit from regularisation include resident doctors, nursing staff, laboratory assistants, X-ray technicians, theatre assistants, anaesthesia assistants, and pharmacists.
These appointments were made on a temporary basis since 2011 under SRO 384 but no government till now had devised a regularisation policy for them.
The letter by GMC Srinagar has been sent days after the General Administrative Department (GAD) issued a memo by an expert committee rejecting the regularisation of the academic arrangement employees in different departments including Health and Medical Education.
“The employees appointed under academic arrangement basis are manning the most vital sections, laboratories, Operation Theatres, Post-operative wards, ICUs, Trauma wards, etc. In case of their disengagement, the patient care services will come to a grinding halt in all associated hospitals,” reads the letter sent by Dr Parvaiz Shah.
“It is requested that with a view to ensuring hassle-free delivery of patient care services and smooth continuation of academic programmes, any final decision with regard to the SRO pertaining to Health and Medical Education Department may kindly be revisited and the request made by this office last year may be considered favourably,” it adds.
The Principal said the memo issued by the GAD has caused a great deal of uncertainty and discontent among the staff working on academic arrangement basis. About 40 percent of the paramedical posts are vacant in GMC Srinagar and its associated hospitals and it is only with the help of these contractual staff that patient care is running smoothly, Dr Shah said.
He pointed out that in the Anaesthesia department, 95 percent posts are manned by the academic arrangement employees.
“Our (operation) theatres are already overburdened… in the event of any disruption by way of a strike by these employees or their disengagement, the scheduled procedures would get inordinately delayed and the poor patients will be the ultimate sufferers,” Dr Shah has said.
“The government is also mulling to ban the private practice of doctors and we won’t be able to cope with the increased rush of the patients with limited staff,” Dr Shah cautioned.
He also highlighted that the issue of medical employees has been unnecessarily equated/dubbed with the employees working on academic arrangement basis in other departments like Education, Technical Education, etc.
“Our nature of business and the delivery of services is totally different from these departments. We have to ensure round the clock healthcare services while as the aforementioned departments function from 10 AM to 4 PM, and require services of contractual staff for a few months only. Our staff can in no way be equated with the contractual staff of other departments,” the principal has stated.
In December last year, the government formed a high-level committee to examine regularisation of academic arrangement employees in various government departments including the Health and Medical Education department.
A few days ago, the committee submitted a report and rejected the regularisation of the academic arrangement employees.
The committee observed that “regularisation won’t be appropriate in view of the fact that contractual arrangement between the government and these persons are clear and such an arrangement doesn’t amount to regular appointment and will violate the quality of opportunity to others.”
The committee directed the Administrative Secretary to implement its recommendations in a time-bound manner.
According to the employees working on academic arrangement basis, the government has ditched them.
“We feel deceived after serving for nearly a decade,” said Hilal Ahmad, one of their representatives.
“As per the SRO rules, our term should have been terminated after six years until filling of permanent posts at their places, but the government continued our services with a promise of regularisation. But they neither terminated us nor regularised us,” he said.
The aggrieved employees said they would fight a legal battle against the policies of the government.
“We will approach the Supreme Court to demand our regularisation as we have been working on the posts for the past nearly 10 years,” they said.

Manzoor ul-Hassan