‘Stipends for PGTs in Bengal higher than many BJP-ruled states’
Kolkata: The Mamata Banerjee-led Bengal government outperforms many states in the country, including the BJP-ruled ones, on a key health indicator that is directly related to the well-being of budding doctors.
A stipend for postgraduate trainee doctors in Bengal is much higher than that of the doctors in some medical colleges in states like Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana sources said. A major dissimilarity in paying the trainee doctors is plaguing the country’s medical education.
According to data, the postgraduate trainee (PGT) doctors in the government-run medical colleges of Bengal get around Rs 51,000, however, in the case of private medical colleges, the amount is much less.
It was learnt that a private medical college in Bengal provides a stipend of around Rs 22,000 to the PGTs.
The National Medical Commission (NMC), the sole body monitoring medical education in the country during a survey came to know that there has been a massive discrepancy in stipends paid to the doctors pursuing specialized postgraduate courses in private and government medical colleges.
In many of the medical institutions in the country, the PGTs are getting a stipend as low as Rs 15,000. However, there are medical colleges in the country which pay a stipend as high as Rs 1.25 lakh. According to statistics, half of the medical colleges in the country have been accused of paying less to budding doctors as a stipend.
The PGTs in the medical colleges in the BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan get a much lesser stipend compared to the students in Bengal’s medical colleges.
The PGTs in a private medical college in Karnataka get Rs 15,000 as a stipend per month while another private institution in Bathinda in Punjab provides Rs 15,600 as a stipend to its PGTs.
Another private medical college in Rajasthan while the other in Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow offers a stipend of Rs 20,000 to its students.
One private medical college in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi provides Rs 21,000 as a stipend to its PGTs while another private medical college in Telangana offers Rs 25,000 as a stipend to its students.
Some of the Centre-run medical colleges in Delhi pay their PGTs stipend as high as Rs 1.20 lakh per month.
A case was also filed at the Supreme Court regarding the dissimilarity in stipend.
Many postgraduate trainees had earlier alleged that in many places these doctors do not get a stipend while in many cases they receive a meagre amount as a stipend from the medical colleges they are in. On condition of anonymity, a PGT doctor in Kolkata said: “Most private medical colleges do not pay proper stipends but the interns and PG doctors shoulder a huge workload of patient care services.”
