12 April 2004	Monday	21 Safar 1425

PESHAWAR, April 11: The Contract Doctors Association has announced that a black day will be observed on April 12 in protest against non-acceptance of their demands by the government.

Talking to reporters here on Sunday, Syed Taimur Shah, the association's president, said "our members would wear black arm-bands and present a memorandum to Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani."

He said the CM would be reminded of the commitment made by the provincial health minister with the con-tract doctors that "has not been kept." The health minister had promised that under a formula, the contract of senior doctors would be extended without subjecting them to the service commission exam, whereas the rest would be regularized through an assembly bill.

He said: "We had ended our strike after being assured that our problems will be solved, but we regret that the minister has gone back on his promise." "We will arrange a march on Islamabad to apprise the prime minister of our problems and stage a sit-in in front of Parliament House if the CM didn't offer a solution to our grievances by April 15," said Mr Shah.

The minister, he said, had assured that a formula would be devised under which the contract of doctors appointed in 1995-96 along with those having passed PSC exam once during 1999-2002 would be extended without being put through the commission's exam.

Aside from this, the minister had also promised that those employed on contractual posts during 1999-2002 along with those having attained the age of 37 would also be exempted from the PSC tests.

Subsequently, he said, a committee under the DG Health was constituted to make recommendations, which submitted its report to the health minister in March. He deplored that the notification concerning their exemption from the test was not issued despite a lapse of two weeks, which "has sent a wave of resentment and restlessness among the 1,100 doctors serving on contractual posts in remote areas since 1996."

"We were taken aback when the health minister rejected our demand outright. He instead asked us to appear in tests. We were told by the minister that our jobs would be made permanent through an assembly bill at a later stage," he said.

The association's chief said that "our counterparts" in Sindh had already been regularised through an assembly bill, "while we are running from pillar to post to get our jobs regularized."

He urged MMA leaders Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Qazi Hussain Ahmad to use their influence and regularize "our services through the April 12 session of the provincial assembly."