30 rehired professors of medical colleges in Patiala, Amritsar told to pack up by Punjab Government

Tribune News Service

Karam Prakash

Patiala, June 17

In a major policy shift, the Punjab Government has shown the door to 30 re-employed professors of Government Medical Colleges in Patiala and Amritsar.

Notably, the previous Congress government had given an exemption to these professors despite the former Chief Minister Charanjit Singh having announced “no extension” to any government employee.

As of now, of the 42 re-employed professors, 30 have been asked to leave while 12 have been retained, evidently to avoid the risk of breaking the norm of maintaining the minimum faculty in each department. The minimum faculty rule had been laid down by the National Medical Council.

Sources said the retained re-employed professors would also leave once the ongoing faculty recruitment process was over.

As per the Medical Education Department, the salary bill of the re-employed professors was adding a monthly burden of more than Rs 2 crore to the state exchequer. Each professor was getting a salary between Rs 2 and 3 lakh per month. Given their seniority, a majority of the re-employed professors were not performing Covid duties, said the sources.

Though the retirement age is 62 years, the department had been re-employing professors up to the age of 70 years. Many regular employees said they had always been against the policy of re-employment because this had blocked their promotion avenues.

Hussan Lal, Principal Secretary, Medical Education Department, said, “The objective of this development is to improve the functioning of both medical colleges. We are hopeful that we will not require any re-employed faculty after we complete the ongoing recruitment process.”

• 42 re-employed professors
• Rs 2-3 lakh monthly salary
• 30 professors told to leave
• Rs 2 cr burden on state exchequer

Decision to improve working

The objective of this development is to improve the functioning of the medical colleges in the state. We are hopeful that we will not require any re-employed faculty after we complete the ongoing recruitment process. — Hussan Lal, Principal Secretary, Medical Education Department

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