‘Response lax to long-pending AIIMS vacancies’: Resident doctors write to Centre

NEW DELHI: Attributing poor publicity of recruitment notifications with fewer number of candidates applying for long-pending vacancies, the resident doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) have written to the Prime Minister Office (PMO), Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and institute director Randeep Guleria.

The Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA) of the institute has submitted the letter regarding faculty recruitment to avoid potential confusion and delays in the future. 

As per the letter, not a single doctor has applied for appointment in 10 departments in AIIMS. To overcome the shortage of doctors in AIIMS, the process of permanent appointment of 252 doctors of faculty level (assistant professor) was started in 56 departments in November last year, which is still pending. Meanwhile, AIIMS has also started the second recruitment process for the appointment of 21 other doctors to the post of assistant professors in 12 departments.

According to the association, the letter has been written by the doctors to ensure that equal opportunity is given and the competition is broadened with more eligible candidates. “The list of applicants for the notification that is available on AIIMS website shows that there are no applicants for certain vacancies in 10 departments. Forty per cent of the departments do not even have 3 candidates for every vacant post.

These indicate narrow and restricted competition,” the letter stated. As per the letter, this is in contravention to the very principle of broad-based open competition in government recruitments. “This could possibly be due to poor publicity and dissemination of the notification in view of challenges posed by Covid-19 around November and December 2021,” the letter added.