Gujarat Govt turns to en masse transfer of faculty as NMC inspection of PG courses inches closer

Accordingly, the State Government on Monday has ordered the transfer of 85 professors and associate professors. Among them, 60 teachers belong to BJ Medical College. As per the various media reports, those who had worked during the COVID-19 pandemic have been transferred, while those who had not have been kept in the same post.

The apex regulatory body of medical education is soon going to conduct an inspection of the PG medical courses in the state. In such a situation, mass transfer like this has been done to make sure that the numbers of post-graduation seats in the State remain intact with no reduction.

Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported that 30% of the available posts of professors and assistant professors in Gujarat had been lying vacant in as many as 6 government medical colleges. These colleges included Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, and Jamnagar medical colleges. Apart from these colleges, 8 Gujarat Medical Education Research Society's medical colleges situated in Sola, Gotri, Valsad, Himantanagar, Gandhinagar, Patan, Junagadh, and Vadanagar had also been marked with a want of teaching faculty as 30% of teaching positions had been lying vacant there as well.

Under these circumstances, in order to deal with the severe shortage of medical staff in the Government medical colleges, the State Government has picked on such tactics, officials informed the Times of India.

Gujarat Samachar reports that the medical teachers belonging to various branches including Gynecology, Surgery, Medicine, Anesthesia, Biochemistry, Pediatrics, Orthopedic, and ENT have been transferred, while six professors and assistant professors from pharmacology, radiology, and TB departments had been transferred to Bhavnagar Medical College.

Mentioning that this is a common tactic used by the State Government, one official informed TOI that before any inspection, the measure of mass transfer gets implemented to save the numbers of seats. This happens before the inspection of undergraduate courses as well. After the inspections get over, the teachers generally go back to their original postings after a year. The officials have further informed the daily that as a result of the changes in the rules if a postgraduate professor gets transferred once, they have to stay there for at least one year.

However, the officials added that such a mass transfer from the BJ Medical College could negatively affect the number of seats in the college.