Doctors demand 85% reservation for Telangana students in PG management quota

Hyderabad: Members of the Healthcare Reforms Doctors’ Association (HRDA) are miffed with the non-responsiveness of the state government regarding the reservation of 85 per cent management quota post-graduation seats for Telangana students.

They have also written to the principal secretary of the Department of Medical, Health and Family Welfare explaining the issue and conducted a press conference on Friday.

Referring to the GO 102 by the AP government, the HRDA members, in the letter, said, “The AP government reserved 85 per cent of MQ1 management seats only to local students and 15 per cent seats to other states’ students. However, in the KNRUHS prospectus for management quota seats counselling, it was mentioned that students from all states can participate in counselling.”

“It is a huge injustice to local Telangana students if 85 per cent of MQ1 management quota seats are not reserved for Telangana students. Therefore, we request you to immediately take necessary steps to reserve 85 per cent of MQ1 management quota seats to local students from Telangana,” the letter stated.

President of HRDA Dr K Mahesh Kumar said, “In the majority of other states, including Andhra Pradesh, 85 per cent of seats are reserved for local candidates. But in Telangana, the government has failed to reserve 85 per cent management quota seats for Telangana students and allow postgraduate candidates from other states to participate in counselling.”

‘Private colleges opening fake bank accounts’

Apart from the PG seat reservation issue, HRDA also came down heavily on private medical colleges who are allegedly collecting cheques and opening fake bank accounts for debiting and crediting stipends, which is equivalent to money laundering.

Earlier, the HRDA had written to the principal secretary of health and to the registrar of KNRUHS requesting them to issue an official circular to all private medical colleges to collect fees from students as per the interim order by the High Court of Telangana, to issue circular to private medical colleges not to collect any fees in the name of library, miscellaneous fees etc. as some colleges were found collecting Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh as miscellaneous fees. They had also requested to initiate action on colleges who are insisting on payment of additional fees in the name of stipend payment.

Speaking at the press conference, Dr Mahesh said, “Private medical colleges should give stipends to students in the same way as government colleges pay stipends to medicos. We also demand that the opening of fake bank accounts by private colleges should be stopped. As per National Medical Commission (NMC) rules and GO of Telangana, it is the responsibility of the state government to take action and assure that all medical students get a stipend.”

The HRDA also extended its full support to TGGDA (Telangana Government Doctors’ Association) for the fulfilment of their long pending genuine demands pertaining to government doctors and asked the government of Telangana and officials of the health department to fulfil the demands.