HYDERABAD: The long-drawn battle between two groups of doctors has come to an end with the retirement age of teaching faculty in government medical colleges being raised from 58 to 65 years. The cabinet’s decision, taken on Sunday, will be applicable to the posts of professors, assistant professors and associate professors at government medical colleges, autonomous and semi-autonomous medical colleges.
The will be forwarded to the finance department which will amend employee service rules. For the past one year, post-graduate medical students, and associate and assistant professors had been arguing that getting promotions would become difficult for them if the serving faculty members did not retire on reaching the age of 58. But senior professors, who are set to retire this year, argued that if they were retained, their expertise can be utilised to train more students. Stating the reasons for raising the retirement age, senior officials of the health department said the decision would help in meeting the need for faculty at new medical colleges.
“The Government Medical College at Siddipet will start functioning this academic year and classes for third-year MBBS will start at the Mahbubnagar Medical College this year. Besides, the infrastructure and the teaching hospital are ready so as to start the medical college in Nalgonda and we will apply to MCI for permission to start classes next academic year,” said a senior official.