New Delhi, Sep 17 (IANS) Doctors who opt to work in rural areas will be duly compensated with extra money and weightage points that will help them while going for higher studies, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad announced Thursday.
“The only way to attract the attention of doctors to work in difficult, most difficult and inaccessible areas is through incentives. We have requested the states to give us the list under the above categories. We can provide extra money as extra incentive,” Azad told reporters.

“Assam has already done it. To encourage rural postings, additional weightage will be given in the post graduate examination at the rate of 10 percent for each year of rural service. It will be subject to a maximum of 30 percent extra weightage for three years of rural service,” he said while giving details of his ministry’s achievements in the last 100 days.

Azad said this service will have to be rendered after the internship period only. This service will not only help the National Rural Health Mission, but also help the MBBS doctors in accumulating extra weightage points for further studies,” he added.

The Assam government had Wednesday appointed nearly 800 doctors in a recruitment drive that is expected to revolutionise the region’s rural healthcare sector.

The recruitment campaign has a catch though, as the appointments were made for a one-year period as part of the government legislation that makes it mandatory for all MBBS graduates to serve for a minimum of one year in rural health centres.

“Assam has become the first state in the country to have carried out such a historic recruitment drive by appointing 768 doctors for rural postings in one single day,” state Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told IANS after handing over appointment letters to the doctors in Guwahati.

The young doctors would be getting a monthly fixed salary of Rs.25,000, besides free accommodation in their area of posting.