Doctors in Punjab withdraw strike after assurance from Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 2

Punjab Civil Medical Services doctors suspended their week-long struggle on Friday, after assurance from state Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu to take up their demands with his Cabinet colleagues.

A delegation of the Joint Coordination Committee led by Dr Gagandeep Singh, president of the association had met Sidhu earlier in the day, to discuss their demand for withdrawal of the recommendation made by the Sixth Pay Commission to reduce their

non-practicing allowance from 25 per cent to 20 per cent and delinking it from the basic pay.

“We met the health minister today, who assured that our demand would be discussed in the Cabinet Sub Committee meeting scheduled for coming Tuesday. He assured that the order regarding NPA would be set aside. Thus we have postponed our struggle till Tuesday,” Dr Gagandeep Singh told The Tribune.

It may be recalled that the doctors working in the Health and Animal Husbandry Department have been agitating against the Sixth Pay Commission since last week under the common banner of the Joint Punjab Government Doctors Coordination Committee.

PCMSA president Dr Gagandeep Singh, Dr Gagandeep Singh Shergill, senior vice president of the association, and Dr Sarabjit Singh Randhawa, president, Punjab State Veterinary Officers Association, while praising the assurance given by the health minister to the doctors also warned the government that the struggle of the doctors has just been postponed.

In case the demands of doctors are not met, the struggle will be intensified.

It may be recalled that since last week, doctors in a large number of civil hospitals and veterinary hospitals across the state had boycotted the entire work except emergency services in protest against the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations.

The Joint Committee announced that after the assurance of the health minister, all the doctors in the state would carry out their work as usual from tomorrow by putting black badges on and the next meeting of the Joint Committee would be held on Tuesday evening.