PESHAWAR, Dec 8: Successive provincial governments have failed to regularize the services of hundreds of contract doctors despite making promises, affected doctors said.

The NWFP government for the first time appointed 1,200 doctors in 1995 on a contractual basis. They included women doctors and dental surgeons. They had been promised that they would be regularized in due course. That promise has not been fulfilled as yet.

Another batch was also appointed the next year. Every year, fresh people are appointed.

At present, there are 746 doctors, including 170 women doctors and 150 dental surgeons, working on a contractual basis in civil hospitals and basic health units in remote areas of the province.

Initially, they were given a lump sum salary of Rs5,000 per month, which was increased to Rs7,500 when the military government revised the pay scales two years back.

Their services have not been confirmed yet. On the other hand, the Public Service Commission (PSC) has started interviews for 967 contract posts of doctors from Nov 20, which also include 746 posts on which the doctors have already been working.

These doctors argue that it was unfair to interview them again and again for contract posts, saying that they had already qualified the tests.

According to them, prior to the installation of the MMA government in the NWFP, their contracts were renewed on a year-to-year basis on the recommendation of the medical superintendents, executive district officers, health, and agency surgeons.

They hold that most of the contract doctors had qualified the PSC tests and interviews conducted for regular posts, but could not be appointed because there existed a zonal limit on vacancies.

These doctors, including the graduates of 1989, had to compete with fresh doctors in interviews. Besides, their seniority wasn’t considered for regular appointment.

The government has already asked the contract doctors to appear in the PSC exam for renewal of their contract. According to the doctors, a majority of them had become over-age, because their seniority was not taken into account for appointment to regular posts.

Nevertheless, they had gained experience, besides completing a host of departmental courses, on which the government had spent millions of rupees.

The Sindh Assembly, through a bill, had regularized the jobs of contract doctors, while there was no contract employment in the other two provinces.

The NWFP Employees on Contract Basis (Regularization of Services) Act, 1989, reads: “Notwithstanding anything contained in any law for the time being in force, any civil servant, who is, or has been, appointed or deemed to have been appointed against any post in any government department under section 3 of this Act shall be deemed to have been regularly appointed from the date of his/her continuous officiation, subject to eligibility, according to the service rules applicable to the post, verified by the administrative secretary of the department concerned.”

Moreover, the PSC under section 4 of the 1983 functions rules has no authority to conduct interviews for the contract posts, because under the rules, it required to hold interview only for civil servants. The contract employment doesn’t fall in the category of civil service under the section 2(b) of the NWFP 1973 rules.

The Law Reforms Committee of the NWFP Assembly, has also sent its recommendations to the PSC office a month ago, stating that it could not conduct interviews for appointments on contract basis.