The career dreams of hundreds of young Ayurveda medical doctors and PSC rank holders in the State appear to have been dealt a body blow by an interim order of the Kerala Administrative Tribunal that extended the retirement age of a few serving Ayurveda Medical Officers, thereby effectively stopping new recruitment for the next four years.
The issue assumes more gravity, because no new post has been created in the parent department, the Indian Systems of Medicine (ISM), in the past 10 years. This interim order of the KAT, which extends the service of a few, could adversely impact the fate of hundreds of Homoeo medical graduates also.
Unlike the modern medicine sector, where there are plenty of work opportunities in the public as well as private sector, for over 2,000 Ayurveda students who pass out from some 20 Ayurveda institutions in the State, their most lucrative job prospects are confined to the handful of retirement vacancies that come up off and on in the department.
KAT’s interim order, which gave an extension of four years in service (from 56 to 60 years) to a handful of medical officers who were due for retirement this year in April-May, has thus arguably, signalled the possible demise of the current PSC rank list (the only list to have come out in the past seven years ), from which recruitments were being made as and when retirement vacancies arose.
“Not even 1% of the Ayurveda medical graduates or postgraduates in the State are now getting a placement in government service. Of the 200 persons who made it to the current PSC rank list of August 2020, only 80 got recruited. If not for this KAT order, another 75 persons on the list would have gained entry to government service,” Kerala State Ayurveda Medical Officers Rankholders’ Association vice president G. Dhanya said.
“The said KAT order was issued after six medical officers who were due to retire in April-May at 56 years of age went to KAT seeking parity (in retirement age) with doctors of modern medicine. They secured the order by misleading the tribunal, by quoting a Supreme Court order on parity, but one which had been issued in totally different circumstances,” she pointed out.
The Aardram Mission led to the creation of hundreds of posts in Health Service but this has not been the case in the Ayurveda sector. The retirement age of those who joined ISM since 2013 (some 350 posts) is already 60 years, while a majority of those who joined service before 2013 have at least 12-15 years of service remaining. By the time they are ready to retire, the retirement age would have naturally moved up.
“Our only relief is that the government has moved in appeal against the KAT order. It is unfair that even the employment chances of young doctors on the current PSC list (the tenure of which ends in July 2023) as well as subsequent batches of students should be sacrificed so that a few can continue to be in service. Many of us will cross the age eligibility by the time PSC calls for the next exam,” the association representatives said.
