The Association of Health Service Doctors of West Bengal has levelled grave allegations of nepotism and lack of transparency against the Mamata Banerjee-led government, adding that there have been several irregularities in the doctors’ recruitment process conducted by the government.
In a letter to the Chairman of the West Bengal Health Recruitment Board, the Association of Health Service Doctors of West Bengal (AHSD) has accused the health board of failing to follow the rule of law during the recruitment process resulting in eligible candidates losing out on the posts.
The doctors’ body said that they are in the deepest sense of anguish and pain to furnish the sorry state of affairs in West Bengal in connection with the irregularities and non-transparency in the recruitment process. In the letter, the doctors’ body said that they are committed to justice and implementation of the rule of law. The AHSD said they had written a letter expressing their concerns well ahead of the publication of the result of the recruitment process by the state government.
“But to our utter dismay, we see that the unprecedented proportion of intransparency and nepotism, failing all promises as made from your end, has transgressed all its limits. We are dumbfounded to mention the following gross aberration and discrepancies in this recently concluded episode which eludes minimum application of the rule of law,” said AHSD.
According to the doctors’ body, the irregularities have occurred at three levels. Firstly, there has been an irregularity in the undergraduate students’ appointment that has deprived the postgraduate doctors of being appointed as government doctors in the state. The AHSD alleged that the undergraduate doctors are rewarded through such appointments and was a ‘shameful’ compromise of talent, presumably orchestrated to serve some ulterior motives.
The AHDS also said that single candidates have been chosen for multiple disciplines from preclinical to super speciality. The letter said that the government had recruited many candidates, presumably under the influence of invisible power, for more than six disciplines or even greater, mostly having qualification not commensurate with essential criteria. The doctors’ body also said that the state government is not recruiting eligible doctors to the government posts despite having many vacancies.
Concluding the letter, the doctors’ association has demanded the repealing the already announced list and come out with fresh transparent merit list. The health service doctors’ body said that they would take the necessary legal course if the Mamata Banerjee-led government failed to address such irregularities in the recruitment process.
