Civic doctors seek PM's intervention to get paid, North MCD offers sympathy, blames Delhi govt

New Delhi: Unpaid for as long as two months, doctors working for the North Delhi Municipal Corporation have now written to Prime Minister Narender Modi, seeking his intervention to ensure that they get paid. The letter from the Municipal Corporation Doctors Association has also been marked to L-G Anil Baijal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the North MCD Commissioner.

According to the letter, doctors working for the corporation have not received their salaries for months despite diligently dealing first with Covid's crushing second wave and then the dengue surge soon after. The letter said, "Doctors of

MCD have been working sincerely through tough Corona Pandemic times & that too many a times without salaries, so much so that this time we were even deprived from celebrating Diwali due to no salary payments while the whole nation was celebrating it."

The civic body has 1,000 senior doctors, 500 resident doctors and 1,500 nurses in medical facilities under its jurisdiction. Their salaries have been delayed since September.

North MCD Standing Committee Chairman Jogi Ram Jain said, "We understand the issue, we have paid everyone but the senior doctors. But we don't have any money to pay them. The salaries we paid came from other departments, if the Delhi Government pays us the crores of money they owe us, we will definitely pay everyone their salaries but currently we are struggling to have enough for any department."

The letter suggested that a permanent solution is agreed upon since this financial problem is recurrent and has existed for many years. The Association has requested the PM to intervene in this matter stating, "It appears as if all higher authorities/ Institutions of this country are more helpless than us in ensuring timely payment of salaries to doctors & other healthcare workers."

The association also asked whether the Health Ministry order on FIR against employers for not paying doctors and healthcare workers was just on paper, adding that if they go on strike now, the onus would be on the administration.

Significantly, it said that the North MCD was neither able to manage its funds, nor was it willing to hand over the hospitals to the Central government as per court orders and appealed for the PM's intervention.