Mumbai: Honorary docs' pay to increase tenfold, but still won't be enough

Clockwise from left Medical Education Minister Girish Mahajan says the stipend will be increased to Rs 1500025000 Dr Pravin Shingare director DMER and TP Lahane dean GMC have also assured that the hike in honorarium is in the works middayrsquos reportWithin hours of midday putting the spotlight on the pending dismal stipend of honorary teaching faculty at several staterun hospitals across Maharashtra Medical Education Minister Girish Mahajan yesterday assured that the honorarium will be increased from Rs 1500 to Rs 1500025000 a month He said he would look into why dues of the last two years hadnrsquot been releasedCama Hospital which comes under Grant Medical College offers a teaching programmemidday had yesterdayreported that not only are regular contractual teachers RCTs of staterun hospitals offered a measly honorarium of Rs 1500 a month but they had also not received their stipend in the last two yearsSet the ball rollingA fulltime teaching faculty member is paid anywhere between Rs 70000 and Rs 15 lakh per month An honorary BMC corporator takes home a monthly pay of Rs 10300Also read Honorary doctors get imaginary stipendMahajan told midday that the government is mulling over increasing the RCTsrsquo honorarium ldquoToday R1500 is not sufficient to meet even monthly petrol expensesrdquoHe said a proposal mdash which moots a minimum payment of R15000 to assistant professors and R25000 for senior professors and associate professors mdash has been sent to the finance department and will soon be placed before the cabinet for approvalDr Pravin Shingare director Directorate of Medical Education and Research confirmed that the ball has begun rolling ldquoWe are in communication with the departments concerned and are hopeful that the plea to increase the remuneration will be accepted by the finance department The process has already begun and hopefully it will be accepted soonrdquoPending service ordersDr TP Lahane dean of Grant Medical College which runs four hospitals in the city mdash St George JJ Cama and GT mdash said the government is ldquoseriously consideringrdquo the hike in remuneration ldquoOf 100 RCTs we have received the service continuation orders of only 89 The othersrsquo are pending Without the service continuation order they are not entitled to the Rs 1500 honorariumrdquoA senior RCT professor trashed the claim of pending ordersldquoIf 11 RCTs have not submitted their continuation orders how are they then allowed to enter the premises of Grant Medical College handle medicolegal cases and even teach students If a faculty member does not have the requisite order then it would imply that hisher handling of medicolegal cases will not be allowed in court and the case accused will gain upper hand thenrdquoAsked if a possible fund crunch in the medical education department is to blame for the pending payments Dr Shingare clarified that it has sufficient money and that payment issues lie with individual institutesldquoI will speak to Dr Lahane and find the reason It is also the doctorsrsquo responsibility to follow up with the dean and ensure that their bank account details are clearly and correctly submitted failing which they wonrsquot get their paymentsrdquoOnly lip service so farThe demand for increasing the stipend hasnrsquot come out of the blue For years the Association of Government Medical College Teachers has been asking the state government to increase the honorarium for RCTs and has sent several letters to health ministers and finance ministers in the hope of seeing concrete actionIn one of the letters a copy of which is with midday it has demanded a remuneration of Rs 75000 a month for professors Rs 50000 for associate professors and R40000 for assistant professors hired as RCTsDr Vijay Tapase president of the association said it has so far received only lip service ldquoWe have received a number of assurances but nothing has come of themrdquoHe revealed that the honorarium hasnrsquot been changed since 1988 ldquoTill then honorary teaching faculty was paid Rs 250 a month as petrol allowanceIn those days we could get a gallon of petrol with that money After numerous discussions with health ministers and bureaucrats the allowance was increased mid1988 to Rs 1500 We have been pleading to get our rightful duesrdquo