More Than Half of Faculty Posts Vacant in Punjab Medical Colleges: CAG Report

New Delhi: More than half of the sanctioned faculty posts and around 84 percent Senior Resident, 83 percent Junior Resident doctors posts in medical colleges under the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER), Punjab, are lying vacant, revealed a recent report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India.

While 51.38 percent sanctioned posts of Professors were vacant, there were a 63.82 percent vacancy for the posts of Associate Professors and 42.68 percent vacancy for the posts of Assistant Professor, revealed the CAG Report on performance audit of Public Health Infrastructure and Management of Health Services.

As per the report, the DMER has a sanctioned strength of 10,151 posts, which includes the sanctioned strength of four medical colleges. These sanctioned posts include 932 posts of Professor/Associate Professor/Assistant Professors, 960 posts of Medical Officer/Senior Resident/Junior Resident, 3507 posts of Staff Nurse, 856 posts of paramedics, and 3896 other posts.

However, as of 31.12.2022, 6008 of the sanctioned posts were lying vacant. Therefore, there was a 59.19 percent vacancy in DMER. "51.61 per cent posts of Professor/Associate Professor/Assistant Professor, 74.38 per cent posts of Medical Officer/Senior Resident/ Junior Resident, 57.23 per cent posts of Staff Nurses, 63.55 per cent posts of paramedical staff and 58.06 per cent posts of other staff are vacant in DMER," mentioned the report.

The Audit also analysed category-wise data and noted that there are 218 sanctioned posts of Professors, 304 posts of Associate Professors, 410 assistant professors, 195 posts of Medical officers, 466 posts of Senior Residents, 299 posts of Junior Residents, 3507 posts of Staff nurse, 22 posts of Demonstrators, 200 posts of clerk, 120 posts of nursing sisters, 124 posts of pharmacists, and 103 posts of Lab technicians.

Among these, regarding the posts of Professors, Associate and Assistant Professors, 112, 194 and 175 posts were lying vacant, respectively. Therefore, there was a 51.38 percent vacancy for the posts of Professors, 63.83 percent vacancy for Associate Professors, and 42.68 percent vacancy for Assistant Professors.

While around 35.90 percent posts of Medical Officers were vacant (70 put of 195), there was a huge vacancy in the posts of Junior and Senior Residents. Altogether 395 out of 466 (84.76 percent) posts of Senior Residents and 249 out of 299 (83.28 percent) posts of Junior Residents were unfilled. Further, the audit revealed that there was a 57.23 percent vacancy of staff nurses, 68.18 percent vacancy of demonstrators, 59 percent vacancy of clerks, 69.17 percent vacancy of nursing sisters, 69.35 percent vacancy of pharmacists and 91.26 percent vacancy of lab technicians.

Referring to the shortage of faculty and manpower, the Audit noted the following:

i. 51.38 per cent vacancies of Professor, 63.82 per cent vacancies of Associate Professor and 42.68 per cent vacancies of Assistant Professor were lying vacant in different medical colleges under DMER;

ii. 35.90 per cent vacancies of Medical Officer, 84.76 per cent vacancies of Senior Resident and 83.28 per cent vacancies of Junior Resident were lying vacant in different medical colleges under DMER;

iii. 57.23 per cent vacancies of Staff Nurse, 69.17 per cent vacancies of Nursing Sister, 91.26 per cent of Lab Technician and 69.35 per cent of Pharmacist were lying vacant in different medical colleges under DMER; and

iv. 59.00 per cent vacancies of Clerk and 68.18 per cent per cent vacancies of Demonstrator were lying vacant in different medical colleges under DMER.

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