Safdarjung's 84 Adhoc SR posts trigger concerns over reservation allocation
New Delhi: An advertisement issued by Safdarjung Hospital and Vardhman Mahavir Medical College (VMMC) for filling up 84 vacant ad hoc Senior Resident (SR) posts has raised concerns within the medical community.
The premier government tertiary care centre in New Delhi invited candidates for walk-in interviews to fill Senior Resident posts for 89 days, which may be extended or continue till regular appointments are made. The vacancies are spread across 30 departments, including Paediatrics, Radiology, Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Cardiology, Orthopaedics, Oncology and others.
According to the notification, among 84 adhoc Senior Resident posts, 19 posts have been allotted to the Unreserved (UR) category, 19 to Economically Weaker Section (EWS), 22 to Other Backwards Classes (OBC), 16 to Scheduled Castes (SC), and 8 to Scheduled Tribes (ST).
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The notification further mentioned that in case of non-availability of the candidate for EWS vacant post(s), the candidates belonging to other categories, including un-reserved will be considered for adhoc appointment or till the post is filled on regular basis, whichever is earlier, in the interest of patient care and 24 posts of Senior Resident are being reserved horizontally for Persons with Benchmark Disability (Divyangjan) including backlog vacancies as per DOPT, Govt. of India Rules.
Meanwhile, Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) Chief Patron Dr Rohan Krishnan has raised concern about the distribution of seats. He stated that ad hoc Senior Resident posts are mainly service-based and temporary, created to manage workload and not roster-balancing exercises.
He pointed out that in several core departments, there are no Unreserved (UR) vacancies. According to him, this reflects a misapplication of reservation in adhoc service posts.
Dr Rohan also questioned the implementation of EWS reservation at the Senior Resident level. He noted that eligibility for SR posts requires completion of three years of postgraduate training.
In Delhi, PG doctors receive stipends of around Rs 1 lakh per month, which is over Rs 12 lakh annually. Since EWS eligibility is based on income criteria, Dr Rohan indicated that many candidates completing PG in Delhi may not fall under the EWS category, leading to seats remaining vacant.
"EWS reservation at SR level is logically redundant: eligibility requires 3 years of PG training, with Delhi PG stipends already ~₹1 lakh/month (₹12L+/year), exceeding EWS thresholds. When eligibility itself negates EWS status, seats predictably remain unfilled — hurting manpower and patient care," he said in a post on 'X'.
He called for a review of the policy in line with service requirements and Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) norms.
