Aspirants smell nepotism in DMER recruitment process

Parveen Arora

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Tribune News Service

Karnal, November 25

The Directorate of Medical Education and Research, (DMER), Haryana, has started the process to appoint an additional director, two joint directors (medical) and four deputy directors. However, the conditions for the recruitment have brewed resentment among the aspirants of these posts.

An experience of seven years at directorate level has been made mandatory for the post of additional director, six years for joint director (medical) and five years for the post of deputy director.

Raising questions over these conditions, aspirants alleged that these were introduced to oblige favourite candidates. They said it would defy the principle of equal opportunity and a level playing field for all candidates of the Haryana Civil and Medical Services (HCMS). There are over 2,000 HCMS doctors.

The DMER controls all medical colleges, nursing colleges and paramedical colleges in the government as well as private sectors.

Sources said any post in the directorate was considered a prize posting in the health circles.

The DMER has invited applications for one post of additional director, two posts of joint director and four posts of deputy director recently and the last date for submitting applications is November 30.

An aspirant, wishing anonymity, said only 30 to 40 HCMS doctors were posted at the directorate level and had been ‘managing’ their postings for the past several years.

Another aspirant said due to these conditions, only 30 to 40 doctors would be eligible for the posts, thereby raising suspicion of nepotism.

Interestingly, the DMER has not made the directorate-level experience mandatory for applicants from medical colleges.

With these conditions, a medical officer in the HCMS having only 18 years of service with seven-year experience at the directorate level would be directly recruited as additional director without being promoted as SMO or Civil Surgeon, an aspirant added.

Despite several attempts, Health Minister Anil Vij could not be contacted for his comment.