Srinagar: The government Thursday assigned the charge of Additional Director SKIMS Soura and GMC Srinagar Administrator to a single officer, an appointment that many medicos have expressed concern over.
On February 24, a transfer and posting order issued by Principal Secretary to the Government Manoj Kumar Dwivedi posted Gulzar Ahmed Dar, Additional District Development Commissioner (ADDC) Srinagar as Additional Director SKIMS Soura and Administrator GMC Srinagar’s Associated Hospitals.
The charge of these two largest medical institutions of Kashmir has been given to the officer in addition to his duties.
The posting of an Administrator and Additional Director on a “part-time basis” has been decried by the medicos and other staff members of the two institutes.
A senior faculty member of GMC Srinagar said that they had been demanding a full-time administrator for the medical college so that the duties and responsibilities that had been assigned to the freshly empowered post were discharged properly.
Many other staff members of the medical college have expressed concern over the delay in getting the “files through” due to the officer who was holding the additional charge being unable to allocate adequate time to the medical college.
“The transfer and posting order is like from the frying pan into the fire. How is it going to help the medical institutes now that the new officer holds three charges,” a GMC hospital administrator said.
In SKIMS Soura too, some faculty members said that the arrangement of “additional charge” was “ruining institutes” and demanded that the Additional Director be a full-time officer.
Additional Chief Secretary to J&K Government, Health and Medical Education, Vivek Bhardwaj told Greater Kashmir that his department had already placed a request for an officer to hold the charge of the GMC Administrator. “We are hopeful of getting the request addressed soon,” he said.
The government had on February 9 issued an order that allocated the Administrators, Personal Officer, and Administrative Officer major responsibilities at the medical colleges.
The fresh responsibilities of the administrators include supervision of non-gazetted employees of the medical colleges; APRs, inquiries and personal matters of all employees; reference of vacancies; budget and planning; all matters of estates of the medical colleges including hostels of the medical colleges; monitoring of funds allocated under National Health Mission; Hospital Development Fund; draft formulation of recruitment rules; security and other issues.