AP junior doctors serve strike notice to protest high fee in new medical colleges

Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh Junior Doctors’ Association has served a strike notice on the state government on Tuesday in protest against categorisation of seats into self-financing and NRI, with admission fee fixed at Rs 12 lakh and Rs 20 lakh respectively, in the five new government medical colleges. The association said the doctors would go on strike from August 7.

The new government medical colleges are offering undergraduate courses for the academic year 2023-24 at Vizianagaram, Rajamahendravaram, Eluru, Machilipatnam and Nandyal. Each college has around 150 seats.

The state government issued GO 108 recently on categorisation of seats in these colleges. Accordingly, 15 per cent of the total seats were of all India quota. Out of the 85 per cent other seats, 50 per cent  seats are allotted for general category while 35 per cent seats for self-financing and 15 per cent for NRI category.

It also said that the amount collected under self-financing and NRI categories shall be deposited with AP Medical Education and Research Corporation to utilise the amount for development of the existing government medical colleges, new government medical colleges and attached institutions to revitalise tertiary healthcare services and to provide world class education and research across the state.

However, AP JUDA claims that the categorisation of seats would result in a reduction in the number of seats available for eligible students and also for reserved categories like EWS, OBC, SC and ST in addition to causing financial disparity among students.

They say that no other state has such categorisation of seats to charge the students exorbitantly and raised apprehensions that the same trend may be adopted even for government medical colleges for PG admission.

Meanwhile, the state government called the junior doctors for a meeting with health minister Vidadala Rajini and senior officials at the office of health and family welfare at Mangalagiri at 2 pm on Thursday.

The junior doctors said they would even boycott emergency services in hospitals if the government failed to respond to their demand.

AP JUDA general secretary Dr Chaitanya Kumar said, “We are appealing to the state government not to categorise seats by charging high fees. It will discourage meritorious students from pursuing medicine due to lack of affordability.”