Renuka syndrome plagues AIIMS

“This, when the promotions of several more senior persons are still pending before the institute’s committee for the Assessment and Promotion Scheme (APS). Besides, both the candidates fall short of the requisite experience by one or two years,” a senior faculty member pointed out.

Incidentally, senior faculty members, including doctors A B Dey, Mohapatra, Bir Singh, Anoop Saraya and Y K Joshi, had recentlyobjected to the assistant administrative officer dealing with AIIMS faculty matters, since he is facing several charges of forging documents. One of these cases had even come up before the Delhi High Court.

What seems to have raised the hackles of the AIIMS employees is the manner in which these promotions are being effected. According to sources, a meeting of the institute’s APS committee, which usually decides on promotions, has been long overdue.

Included in the list of promotions to be taken up by this committee, are candidates senior to those being given promotions by the minister. In a strongly-worded letter to the minister on Thursday, the AIIMS Employees Welfare Association, representing SC/ST candidates, drew the minister’s attention to similar proposals that she had herself turned down earlier.

The director had recommended the promotion of three private secretaries to the post of principal secretaries, even though they did not fulfill the eligibility criteria and lacked the requisiteexperience. The minister strongly snubbed the administration and issued strict instructions asking them not to send such “unfair” proposals to her again.

The employees’ body has now threatened to launch an agitation if the minister went ahead with the promotions, instead of letting the new government decide.