Bond served in BMC hospitals through parallel counselling null and void: DMER
The one-year mandatory bond served by senior resident doctors in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation-run medical colleges will be considered null and void. This decision aims to prevent the BMC from giving preference to their students, leaving other students from the state at a disadvantage. The move has been welcomed by the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors, but the BMC MARD opposes it and threatens to go on mass leave from January 15. The centralised state-level counselling conducted by the Directorate of Medical Education and Research is seen as more transparent and merit-based.
Mumbai: Starting this year, the one-year mandatory bond served by senior resident doctors in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation-run medical colleges via counselling conducted by the civic body will be considered null and void. The decision was taken by the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) to ensure that the BMC does not give preference to their students to fill up posts of senior resident (SR) doctors, leaving other students from the state in a lurch.

The corporation said they had issued the DMER notice in all their medical colleges on January 1. But the association of resident doctors at BMC hospitals opposed the move and threatened to go on mass leave from January 15 if the decision is not rolled back.
The state medical education department had written to BMC commissioner IS Chahal last week, asking him to ensure that the civic body’s four medical colleges do not reserve posts for senior resident doctors and house officers for their students. This was after BMC-run medical colleges gave preference to their students overruling DMER’s merit list and counselling for the second year, in violation of a Bombay high court order.
Dr Dileep Mhaisekar, director, DMER said, “It has been observed that BMC has been recruiting SRs prior to the declaration of posts across the state. This is a violation of the high court order regarding allotment of SR posts, so we sent them a letter eight days back. Last time too, the medical education commissioner had issued a letter to the civic body, but they had filled up the SR posts on their own,” he said, alleging that corporation students were picking up plum posts, while other students from the state were competing for the remaining posts. “This is highly unfair,” he noted.
A centralised system to fill SR posts was set up in 2012, after a PG student moved the high court over his appointment at BMC’s peripheral hospital instead of a BMC-run medical college despite being a top scorer. When the court asked DMER about this, the directorate stated that they did not have the authority to write BMC-run medical colleges as the civic body had its own medical director. The high court then ordered DMER to control all the counselling rounds as per merit across the state, including in BMC-run hospitals.
Dr Pravin Shingare, former director of DMER, said till 2019, the directorate ensured centralised counselling and followed the order of the high court. “After 2019, BMC started to fill their posts without considering the state merit list, but DMER did not take any action,” he said.
The Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD), which has been protesting against parallel counselling by the BMC, welcomed the decision saying it would bring in transparency.
“Why should there be parallel counselling when the exam body is the same for all PG students and they get stipends from the same source too. We are in favour of central counselling as it is more transparent and promotes merit,” said Dr Sarbik De, vice president, central MARD.
“Parallel counselling was unnecessarily complicating things, such that students with lesser merit were getting SR posts in Mumbai. We had been fighting against this for long and are glad that DMER has derecognised it,” said Dr Abhijit Helge, president, central MARD. DMER’s centralised state-level counselling was unbiased and pro-merit, he noted.
The BMC MARD however opposed DMER’s derecognition and threatened to go on mass leave from January 15 if the decision is not rolled back.
“The high court verdict mentions the need to inform authorities about vacancies. It does not explicitly prohibit counselling by the BMC, which is well-advertised, transparent and merit-based,” said Dr Vardhaman Rothe, president, BMC MARD.
The job description of medical students undertaking three-year postgraduate programmes (MD/MS/DNB) is that of a junior resident, and they become eligible for SR posts after completion of their degrees. All PG students at government medical colleges need to complete a one-year bond working for the state government, after which are allowed to pursue academics or a private job. Only doctors with at least a year’s experience as senior residents are eligible to become assistant professors in medical colleges as per norms stipulated by the National Medical Commission in 2018.

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