PATIALA, June 3: The PCMS Association will sit in a protest dharna in front of the office of directorate of Medical Education and Research on June 8 in protest against the imposition of 50 per cent qualifying marks in the P.G. entrance test, for admissions to various post-graduate courses in the state medical and dental colleges.This decision has been taken in an emergency meeting of the apex committee of PCMS Association, held under the chairmanship of Dr B.S. Sahota, president PCMSA, Punjab.In a press release issued here to-day, general secretary of PCMSA Dr.D.C. Sharma said that the apex committee of the association described this step of medical education department as anti-rural and anti-scheduled castes which would snatch away whatever little incentive was available for serving in the rural areas. It charged the health department with failure to safeguarding the interests of in-service doctors. It said that such a decision was taken by the bureaucracy earlier also in 1992 but was eventually withdrawn under the directions of the then health minister.Demanding immediate scrapping of the qualifying marks clause, the PCMSA maintained that the in-service doctors have much higher practical knowledge standards as compared to the fresh graduates and in the field of medicine, the practical knowledge is much more important than the pure theoretical knowledge which is the sole criteria in a written test like the PG entrance test.The PCMSA further demanded that the in-service candidates should be given some weightage for the length of service as was given earlier when 20 per cent marks were given for the length of service. It maintained that the field doctors are usually engaged in serving the rural masses in areas where there are no modern facilities of studies like the the current journals and the advanced libraries. So they cannot be expected to obtain such a high percentage of marks in an irrational and purely theoretical written test.Meanwhile, through another resolution, the PCMSA appealed to Finance Minister Kanwaljit Singh to take action against the accounts officer posted at civil surgeons office at Bathinda and demanded a high level vigilance probe in the alleged complaints against him, by the Bathinda unit of PCMSA, after shifting him from Bathinda.
