Harsh demands resignation of Health Minister;‘Rectify regional imbalance in allocation of PG seats for Medical Colleges’

STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Accusing the BJP-PDP Coalition of administering yet another obnoxious doze of hostile discrimination to Jammu region in the form of unequal share of PG seats announced for the Medical Colleges of the State, Harsh Dev Singh, Chairman JKNPP and former Minister, said that no amount of reasoning or justification provided for the differential treatment could absolve the Health Minister of such vile transgression.
Seeking equal member of seats for GMC Jammu, Singh said that allocation of 57 PG seats for Kashmir based Medical Colleges as against 13 for Jammu was highly unjust, capricious and un-acceptable. He said earlier the H and ME Minister had charged the Principal GMC Jammu for complacence and the resultant lapse but now he was coming out with altogether a different justification for the biased allocation.
The new reasoning given for the uneven allocation of PG seats that it was based on student-faculty ratio was un-acceptable as it was merely an attempt to hood-wink the people of Jammu region, remarked Harsh. He said that if the number of professors and Assistant professors was lesser in Jammu region, the remedy lay in increasing such positions rather than reducing the PG seats for the aspiring candidates of Jammu region.
Asserting that Jammu region has suffered an irreparable loss, Singh said that the people could not be deluded by vague nauseating statements or by shifting the blame to individual officers.
Observing that primacy of ministerial responsibility is and has got to be the lynchpin of democratic and accountable government, Singh said that the Health Minister could not evade responsibility merely by making the GMC Principal a scapegoat and sacking him.
Maintaining that political leadership was responsible for omissions and commissions in their respective departments, Singh said that ministers could not display political cowardice by penning down the lapses and department’s failures on selected officers. He said that when the government departments achieved excellence in some field, the impudent and self flattered ministers patted their own backs but
when lapses occurred the blame was deflected to subordinate officers.
He said that the Health Minster was himself answerable to the people of Jammu region and must display courage to assume the responsibility for the prejudice caused to GMC Jammu.
Alleging further an all pervasive culture of red tape and bureaucracy in H and ME Department, Singh regretted the uncertain fate of the three Medical Colleges sanctioned by the Union Health Minister G.N Azad during 2013.
He lamented that despite lapse of four years no tangible achievement was discernible on the ground with the two cancer institutes announced during the same period also meeting the same fate. He deplored the extremely poor response of the department with regard to establishment of approved AIIMs for which even the land had not been inspected or finalised.
He regretted the lack of infrastructure, faculty and equipments in the so called Super Speciality Hospital as well as GMC Jammu which presented a pathetic plight.