Telangana: Additional Directors clamour for retirement age balm

Hyderabad: To address the shortage of experienced teaching faculty in government medical colleges, the Telangana government had hiked retirement age from 58 to 65 years last June. This move benefitted senior Professors mostly and to some extent Associate Professors under Directorate of Medical Education wing of the Health Department.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao stated at that time that this decision was taken in the State's interest as there was experienced staff crunch in medical colleges in Telangana.

Further KCR said that shortage of experienced teaching faculty was a major problem faced by many States in the country. After MCI took a decision that senior staff services could be utilised for up to 70 years, many States revised the retirement age limit between 62 to 70 years. Accordingly, Telangana decided to enhance the retirement age from 58 to 65 years, he said on that day.

However, Superintendents and Principals from teaching hospitals and medical colleges holding the rank of Additional Directors as well Tutors (recruited with MBBS qualification) missed out as the amended Telangana Public Employment (Regulation of Age of Superannuation) Act, 1984 only mentioned Professors, Associate Professors and Assistant Professors from government medical and dental colleges. There was no mention of Additional Directors and Tutors in it.

Tutors take care of non-clinical subjects and assist Assistant Professors in classwork and labs for first and second-year MBBS students mostly. There are nearly 200 Tutors working in the nine-odd government medical colleges and the Additional Directors count is just around 15.

An ordinance to age hike was issued on an emergency basis in the middle of June and a related bill was passed by Telangana Assembly on July 18.

When asked DME (Director of Medical Education) Dr Ramesh Reddy pointed out the missings were unintentional. He, however stated that they have written to the government to include Additional Directors and Tutors posts as well in the amended Public Employment Act that for now confines only to Professors, Associate and Additional Professors.

However, the big hurdle is that this exercise has to be repeated again by the government in the Assembly. It has to introduce the bill and seek further amendments to the already amended Act.