Delhi: AIIMS Resident doctors write to Centre seeking response for long pending vacancies

The doctors suggested that faculty recruitment should not be conducted in a manner that can create potential confusion and delays in the future. The doctors pointed out that AIIMS has also started the second recruitment process. However, the recruitment process that started last November is still pending.

The Resident Doctors' Association (RDA) of the institute has submitted the letter regarding the issue to the concerned authorities. The recruitment notifications did not receive enough publicity and there were fewer candidates applying for long-pending vacancies.

According to the letter, the departments have secured no responses from any eligible candidates for a position in any of AIIMS's ten departments. To address the shortfall of doctors at AIIMS, the process of permanent appointment of 252 faculty level (assistant professor) doctors in 56 departments began in November last year. However, no permanent vacancy was filled and the process is still pending. Meanwhile, AIIMS has begun the second round of recruitment for the appointment of 21 more doctors to the position of assistant professor in its 12 departments.

The doctors' body stated that they have submitted the letter to ensure that equal opportunity is provided and more qualified candidates are given the chance to compete for the opposition, reports The Indian Express. "The list of applicants for the notification that is available on the AIIMS website shows that there are no applicants for certain vacancies in 10 departments. Forty per cent of the departments do not even have 3 candidates for every vacant post. These indicate narrow and restricted competition," the letter stated.

As per the letter, this clearly contradicts the very principle of broad-based open competition in government recruitments. "This could possibly be due to poor publicity and dissemination of the notification in view of challenges posed by Covid-19 around November and December 2021," the letter added.