Strike continues as JUDA boycotts talks

Security staff stop them at Secretariat and ask a delegation of six members to go for talks

• This angry doctors leave, do not return for talks
• TS govt takes it seriously, says their demand of waiver of one-year rural service is not acceptable
• Govt to wait for the HC verdict on the matter today

Hyderabad: The junior doctors played hide and seek with the Telangana government on Sunday evening and finally did not go for the talks to resolve the ongoing strike.

Deputy Chief Minister T Rajaiah invited the representatives of the junior doctors for talks on Sunday evening. About 20 representatives came in a van but the security staff stopped them and told them that they can allow only a delegation of six members.

The junior doctors left the place after a brief argument with the security staff and did not come back. When contacted by scribes, they first said that they had gone to get diesel filled in their vehicle and would be coming soon. Rajaiah along with the Director, Medicial Education Putta Srinivas, also waited for them till 6.30 pm in the state secretariat. The student representatives, when contacted by the media again, said that they were not allowed by the security staff and hence they would come for talks only when they get a written invitation from the government.

The Telangana government has taken a serious note of the strike and made it clear that the demand of the junior doctors to scrap the mandatory one-year rural service cannot be accepted. Speaking to the media later, the Deputy CM said that the TRS Government was in favour of regular and permanent service for doctors as it was the policy of the Government not to recruit employees on contract basis. But as far as the rule of one-year mandatory rural service was concerned the government was not in a position to do anything as it had become mandatory by enacting a law last year. The TS Government is also facing a problem in identifying exact number of vacancies since the process of division of doctors between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana following the bifurcation of the state is not yet completed. The process of regular recruitment could begin only after the division of doctors between the two states was over, he added.

When asked whether the government would take any punitive action against the JUDAs, the minister said the Government had filed a counter-affidavit in the High Court, saying that it had pressed senior doctors into service to attend emergency services in the Government hospitals and would wait for the decision of the court in the matter which would come up for hearing on Monday.

When contacted the TJUDA president Dr G. Srinivas said, “We were not allowed into the Secretariat. Security Police said they will allow only six persons, which is not acceptable to us. Our strike will continue.”