New Delhi, Dec 11 (IANS) Doctors who want to quit the All India Institute for Medical Sciences (AIIMS) need to seek leave for a period of two years and vacate their plush quarters, the Valiathan Committee has recommended.
The committee, set up to look for better management and functioning processes for the top medical institute of the country, however, recommended that a doctor needs to work for at least five years before asking for such a release.

“For additional professors/professors who wish to serve in the private sector in India or abroad after 5 years of service, leave for 2 years should be considered favourably when they would not be entitled to receive pay or allowances or retention of quarters,” according to the committee report, tabled in the Lok Sabha Friday.

Over the last few years, several senior doctors have left the AIIMS for greener pastures. While some left for lucrative private hospital jobs, some left the country for new jobs or further studies.

The committee has recommended that “at additional professor/professor level, if any individual with proven contributions to science wishes to switch to a purely research career that should be permitted”.

The committee said that the post of the head of the department needs to be rotated among senior faculty members every five years.

It has also suggested that like the IITs and IIMs, faculties and departments must be allowed to do consultancy services along with their regular jobs.

About the promotion of the faculty members, it has said that “the qualifying service required to become eligible for time-bound promotion from assistant professor to associate professor should remain four years.”

“The eligibility period for promotion from associate to additional professor should be reduced to three years, provided the candidate has published at least three papers in journals with an impact factor of not less than two. This is a reasonable requirement for anyone who wishes to occupy a senior faculty position of additional professor,” the committee has recommended.

It has also said that all top AIIMS like institutes need to form a joint council and the health minister should head this council in stead of heading each of the institution.

“The majority of the recommendations have been accepted in principle and are at various stages of implementation,” Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad told the Lok Sabha.