Chennai, August 27 (BPNS)

The Directorate of Medical Education (DME), Tamil Nadu has directed the deans of some government medical colleges in the state to collect the bond amount of Rs 50 lakh from specialty doctors who have skipped government postings.

The DME of Tamil Nadu, Dr. Narayana Prasad has written letters to the deans of government medical colleges citing the cases of 112 doctors who had completed the higher specialty courses in 2021 and 2021 and had chosen not to take up the government service during the recent online transfer counseling.

According to Tamil Nadu government norms doctors who have completed specialty courses from government medical colleges and those who are not in government service will have to pay a bond amount that was agreed upon during their admission.

The letter written by the DME said that the doctors were unwilling to work in Tamil Nadu government service and have failed to take up postings available in their specialty department in government medical colleges.

Dr Narayana Prasad in the letter to the deans of government medical colleges to issue a show-cause notice as a first step. The DME in the letter called upon the deans to initiate action against the nonservice postgraduates in higher specialty streams after the show cause notice. The bond amount, according to the letter has to be recovered through Revenue recovery act with immediate effect.

The Directorate of Medical Education (DME) has directed the deans to send an action taken report within August 31 on this issue. All the super-specialty seats in Tamil Nadu is filled by the Director-General of Health Services under All India Quota and a bond are mandatory for nonservice doctors.

The Madras High court has on October 6, 2020, ordered that postgraduate medical students admitted under the All India Quota have to compulsorily serve the state government for a period of two years.

Dr Narayana Prasad while speaking to BPNS said, “The state has reduced the bond amount from of Rs 2 crore which was till last year to Rs 50 lakh now. The doctors opted out of serving the state government even after there were vacancies during the counseling. The government will take strict action against the erring doctors and have already written to the deans of Government medical colleges to produce an action taken report before August 31.”

The DME also expressed unhappiness that the doctors did not serve the government even during the Covid period.