Medical interns to get 80% hike in stipend

Interns at medical colleges affiliated to central universities will soon get a nearly 80 per cent hike in their monthly stipend, raising it from Rs 5,000 to Rs 8,900. Charu Sudan Kasturi reports.

Interns at medical colleges affiliated to central universities will soon get a nearly 80 per cent hike in their monthly stipend, raising it from Rs 5,000 to Rs 8,900.

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In Delhi, interns at Maulana Azad Medical College, Lady Hardinge College and the University College of Medical Sciences — all attached to Delhi University, a central university — are among those who will benefit.

After months of bureaucratic wrangling, the finance ministry has approved a University Grants Commission (UGC) proposal backed by the HRD ministry to raise the stipend, government sources told HT.

It will now be at par with what is paid to their counterparts in autonomous central universities like AIIMS get, where stipends were raised two years ago.

"The HRD ministry and the UGC argued that the hike was essential to end the 'discrimination' between institutions like AIIMS and central university medical colleges," a finance ministry official said.

The Rs 5,000 stipend, fixed in 1999, has been criticized as paltry and there have been agitations by medical students demanding it be raised.

In India, MBBS students must complete a year of mandatory internship at a hospital attached to their medical college after their course, to get their degrees.