Demanding higher wages, the members of the Kerala Government Medical Officers Association (KGMOA) will go on a day's strike all over the State on Thursday. Apart from wage hike, the Association demands implementation of Specialty-Administrative Cadre system in the department.

The office-bearers of the Association said they have asked the government to take measures to correct the anomalies in the pay scale revision of 2006 and to increase the promotion opportunities of the working doctors.

KGMOA has been taking a series of agitations from the fifth of this Month to meet their demands, and as a token of protest the members held a dawn to dusk Dharna before the secretariat yesterday.

Vice-president of the Association, Dr Joseph Gomez said if their demands are not satisfied, the association will be compelled to hold a state wide strike from next Month.

While explaining the mode of agitation, he said, about 3000 government doctors from the health department will stop their work. Doctors from Primary Health Centres, Community Health Centres, Taluk Hospitals, District Hospitals and General Hospitals are raising voices against the anomalies.

In a statement Dr Manoj Narayanan, President of the KGMOA said the government had in September last year promised the association that the anomalies found in the pay revision would be corrected along with the implementation of Specialty-Administrative Cadre system from April 1, 2007. But so far, the cadre system has not been implemented, he said. In the pay revision of 2006 the government doctors' scales had gone far below that of other officers' with same rank and position.

Before the pay revision the pay scale of a Civil Surgeon and of an Administrative Officer (Grade-1) was Rs 10000-15150. But in the revision, the civil surgeons's scale is Rs 16650-23200 and of the administrative Officer's scale is Rs 20700- 26600.

Likewise, the assistant surgeon's scale was hiked from Rs 7600-11400 to 11910-19350, whereas the scale of an account officer of a government department was raised to Rs.12250-19800 from Rs.7200-11400. When an estate officer draws an amount with a pay scale of Rs 20700-26600, an assistant surgeon will get only lesser amount, working sixty hours per week, he said.

Dr Jayachandran, an assistant surgeon in Pathanamthitta district and an active member of the association complained that in Tamil Nadu, fifty per cent of the Medical PG courses are reserved for the working doctors in the state. But in Kerala the reservation is very low.

The members representing the Association said huge anomalies are being found in the revised scales which have to be corrected with immediate effect.