AIIMS Doctors yet to Get Pay; Pro-Quota Activists Attack UPA Govt

The anti-quota agitators at AIIMS were still awaiting their salaries for the strike period, a day after the Supreme Court directed the Health Ministry to pay them for strike period.

AIIMS Registrar V P Gupta said the Institute authorities were "awaiting directions" on release of salaries to the anti-quota agitators.

"We are waiting for directions," he said adding that the apex Court had directed the Health Ministry on the release of salaries and the Institute can take necessary action only after the government directs it.

"We respect the court order and will follow the health ministry directives (in this regard)," an AIIMS spokesman said.

Meanwhile, pro-quota activists lashed out at the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre for its "dual policy" on quota.

"The Union Health Ministry had taken a stand that salary of the doctors cannot be released for the period for which they had gone on strike but before the court the government counsel articulated just the opposite view," Vikas Bajpai of the pro-quota Medicos Forum for Equal Opportunities said in a statement here.

The Forum also accused AIIMS Director P Venugopal, a section of the Faculty and the anti-reservation agitators of creating a divide within the Institute.

"Sections of the faculty, residents and students have forged an upper caste chauvinist alliance that has vitiated the whole atmosphere at AIIMS," it said.

Source:PTI News