78 absentee doctors in Andhra Pradesh get show cause notice for unauthorised leave

Vijayawada: Taking action against absentee professors across the state, the Andhra Pradesh health department has issued show-cause notices to 76 assistant professors and two associate professors working at government medical colleges for being on unauthorised leave for more than a year. 

The department directed all the 78 professors on the list to submit an explanation for their unauthorised absence within 15 days or face strict disciplinary action.

A government order containing names of such professors of different government medical colleges in this regard has come to the fore. The professors who were served the notices had been abstaining from their duty for a minimum of one year and there were one who had not been coming to work for the past seven and a half years. 

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Among the assistant professors, 18 are from Andhra Medical College (AMC) in Visakhapatnam, 13 from Sri Venkateswara Medical College in Tirupati and 12 from Government Medical College in Ongole. Moreover, one of the assistant professors at AMC is the one who has been on unauthorised leave for more than seven-and-half years, TNIE reports.

Talking about this, DVSL Narasimham, Director of Medical Education (DME) said in the show cause notice, “The professors have violated the services rule as they have not obtained any prior permission for leave. Their absence will be treated as resignation from government service as it has caused massive inconvenience to the hospital administration."

Meanwhile, AMC authorities are of the view that the prolonged absence of the professors hasn’t impacted their services. Butchiraju, the principal of AMC, said, “Whenever doctors are on unauthorised leave for over a month, they are notified. The vacancies are filled in the form of transfers or promotions after informing DME. However, there are some colleges, which are not preferred by doctors for various reasons, must have faced problems."

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