Gujarat to appoint 600 medical teachers on contract basis at 6 GMCs

Gandhinagar: When several State Governments are adopting different strategies to ensure a sufficient supply of workforce during the pandemic condition, the Gujarat State Government has decided to employ 600 teachers in 6 different government medical colleges on a contract basis to fill up the vacancy.

This comes with an objective to meet the shortage of medical teachers in Government Medical Colleges and Aligned Hospitals in Gujrat; and to provide quality medical teachers to the medical students and best medical services to patients in the government-run medical colleges and aligned hospitals.

As per the Additional Secretary (Medical Education) and a senior member of the committee that interviews candidates, V G Vanzara, "With the availability of medical teachers (through the contract system), it will also help the state government in increasing post-graduate(PG) seats in government medical colleges."

The Health Department has already initiated procedures of appointing 600 new recruits. It is anticipated that by July 18, the 600 vacancies will be fulfilled with the new recruitment. As per Vanzara, the total strength of medical teachers in six government medical colleges is around 2,150, and presently, interviews are underway for around 600 vacancies in the state.

As per the government resolution, the professors can have a maximum fixed monthly remuneration of Rs 1.84 lakh. Similarly, the maximum fixed monthly salary of Associate Professors, Assistant Professors, and Tutors will be Rs 1,67,500, Rs 89,400, and Rs 69,300 respectively.

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Earlier, the Gujarat government was appointing medical teachers on various vacant posts on an ad hoc basis till the time of regular appointments. However, later it decided to make appointments in Government Medical Colleges on an 11-month contract basis. A resolution to this effect was also issued on 31 March 2020.

While talking about the need of recruiting new health workers, Vanzara told The Indian Express that "There is a dearth of medical teachers in government medical colleges. Generally, such appointments are done through the Gujarat Public Service Commission. But, it takes a long time to make appointments through such a procedure. And so, as a stop-gap arrangement, the state government has decided to appoint medical college teachers on a contract basis. Such a system is being adopted by a number of states in the country".

For instance, there are a total of six government medical colleges in Gujarat apart from two government dental colleges.