Inkeshaf Ahmed
The Telangana Government has issued orders reducing the term of the Heads of Department (HOD) in government medical colleges and teaching hospitals of the state. It has decided to transfer the HODs every two years instead of keeping them in one post for a long time.

The government has issued orders to this effect. In its orders, the state Government has asked the authorities concerned to appoint the HODs on rotational basis.

Although the rules of Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences are clear that the HODs will have to be transferred every two years and they will be replaced with a professor who has a similar qualification, it is not being implemented strictly in the state so far.

In some vital departments of Osmania Medical College, some HODs have been working in the same post for a very long time. This has forced several other professors with same qualifications to retire without getting the opportunity to become the HOD even once in their lifetime. It has also led to the harassment of their juniors and other faculty members by the HODs on flimsy grounds.

The professors who deserve to be promoted as the HODs have been demanding from the state government to strictly implement the two year term rule. They have also sent several representations to the director of the directorate of Medical education of the state for the strict implementation of the rule.

This has finally prompted the state government to issue orders making it clear that the HOD post would be given to the deserving and eligible  candidates on rotation basis.

Commenting on the issue, a qualified and deserving professor told DTMT that their years of hard work has finally paid off. “It’s like our dream has come true. We thought it would never happen in our lifetime. Several deserving medical professors retired without becoming HODs. We are thankful to the state government for fulfilling our demand,” he said.

Responding to the issue, an official of the health department told DTMT that they would make sure that their orders are implemented. “We had to issue the orders as we received complaints about the acts of corruption and of harassment of their juniors by the existing HODs. We wanted to put a full stop to the same by taking strict steps,” he said.