Around 10,000 retired doctors demand NPA, other benefits as per 7th Pay Commission

Ahmedabad: The confusion over Non-Practicing Allowance (NPA) of Gujarat doctors is still not over since more than 10,000 retired doctors belonging to the State have not received the NPA in compliance with the 7th Pay Commission recommendations.

Several doctors belonging to the State who retired from their service after January 1, 2016 and June 1, 2019 are mainly facing the issue. Non-practicing allowance is a special pay allowance paid by the Government to the doctors for barring them from private practice.

The issue is not limited only to NPA since several doctors have alleged that they have not even paid the increment since 2021. Refusing to be named a retired government doctor told Vibes of India, "As a pensioner, I incurred a loss of Rs 18,000 per month. On average, a doctor loses 9.5 lakhs owing to the government's inaction. What do we do now? We appealed to the government several times but our requests have fallen on deaf ears."

"The government doesn't want to pay doctors. They are launching new hospitals but not recruiting more doctors. To launch a government college or hospital, they transfer existing facilities to the new project and, after the launch, they shift the amenities back to their original places. This is unfair," the doctor added.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that last year almost 1700 tutors, assistant professors, associate professors and professors of six medical colleges came under the banner of the Gujarat Medical Teachers Association (GMTA) and had launched a relay hunger strike to press their demands including higher non-practicing allowance (NPA) as per the 7th Pay Commission recommendations and the abolition of contractual appointments. GMERS doctors had also participated in the protest.

Also Read:Gujarat:10000 Govt Doctors on Strike demanding Adhoc regularisation, timely promotions

In the 7th pay commission, the provision of a special monthly allowance was added for medical teachers. Paid under the name of "non-practicing allowance" an allowance ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 35,000 gets paid to the medical teachers per month as they sacrifice their private practice after joining the government service.

As the State Government had then accepted most of the demands of the protesting teachers, the medical teachers had withdrawn their strike. However, later the State Government had withdrawn the special pay allowance and had also recovered the amount paid previously.

While the first Government resolution had been issued by the State Health Department under former CM Vijay Rupani's leadership on May 16, 2021, later the State had withdrawn the earlier GR on November 22, 2021.

Back in August 2021, the State had approved the NPA allowance for in-service doctors in the government hospitals and teachers of the Gujarat Medical Education and Research Society (GMERS) medical colleges. Consequently, Nitin Patel announced the allowance on his Facebook page, calling it a "Rakshabandhan gift" for doctors and medical college teachers.