State reserves seats for docs with 3 yrs service in govt hospitals

Mumbai: Putting an end to months of speculation, the state government on Wednesday announced that in-service medical officers will now have 25% reservation in state quota seats in postgraduate medical admissions

Mumbai: Putting an end to months of speculation, the state government on Wednesday announced that in-service medical officers will now have 25% reservation in state quota seats in postgraduate medical admissions. In-service doctors are those who have completed 3 years of service in government hospitals. The announcement was made on Wednesday by state health minister Rajesh Tope via Twitter.

State reserves seats for docs with 3 yrs service in govt hospitals

While the reservation will be applicable only from the next academic year (2022-2023), here’s a rough idea of how many seats will fall under this quota. Of the total 1,558 seats in the state quota in government and private PG medical colleges in state in 2021-22, nearly 384 seats will be reserved for this new in-service quota from next academic year.

A meeting was held between state government officials from medical education as well as health departments along with medical education minister Amit Deshmukh and deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar.

“This important and far-reaching decision will ensure specialist services will be available to patients in rural and tribal areas. It has therefore been approved to give reserved quota of 25% in PG medical admissions for in-service medical officers,” tweeted Tope.

In January this year the Bombay high court (HC) heard a plea by a medical officer who sought in-service quota that had been discontinued in 2017 to be restored for the 2021-22 academic year. In his plea, Dr Suryakant Lodhe, the petitioner, had highlighted the need for providing medical expertise in rural and tribal areas to address malnutrition and child mortality rates there. HC had given the state time until March to draw up a reservation policy.

Approximately 1.6 lakh students appear for PG-NEET from Maharashtra.

This move has already invited flak from some PG medical aspirants as well as experts. “By giving 25% seats from state quota to in-service officers, the government is leaving very few seats for open category students for whom the fight continues,” said Sudha Shenoy, parent and activist.

“Until 2017, in-service candidates had 50% reserved seats only in post MBBS diploma courses and not in MD/MS courses. They were also getting benefit of additional marks for work done in remote and/or difficult areas. Now students from the quota who took admission in a private institute this year will withdraw their admission and opt for a government quota seat next year,” said Muzaffar Khan, a medical admission activist.