Karnataka government medical colleges in the State are facing a serious staff shortage with 431 vacancies reported in the teaching faculty and 3,488 in the non teaching category.

Bangalore Medical College has a shortage of 92 teaching staff. The total number of posts sanctioned for the college is 462 but only 370 have been filled up. Under the non teaching staff, a total of 1,121 posts are vacant in the college.

Among the government colleges only Mysore Medical College and Belgaum Medical College have more than the sanctioned posts.

According to the details furnished by medical education minister Ramachandra Gowda, the Mysore Medical College has 261 members of teaching staff as against 85 posts sanctioned. The college also has 560 vacancies in the non teaching category.

Even the six new medical colleges in the State at Mandya, Hassan, Shimoga, Raichur, Bidar and Belgaum have lesser staff than the sanctioned posts. For instance the Mandya Medical College has only 27 members of teaching staff as against the sanctioned 212 posts. Hassan Medical College has 68 as opposed to 233 approved posts.

The main reason for the acute shortage is the lack of interest among qualified medical teachers to take on government posting. The existing teachers employed at the colleges were pressing the government to change the pay scales because several lucrative offers came to them from private medical colleges. The state government was forced to revise the scales of professors, associate professors, assistant professor and lecturers of medical colleges in the form of an increase in perquisites and issued a government order (GO) only to prevent attrition, according to a section of officials from the college.

In spite of the support coming from the government in the form of revised pay scales, the colleges across the state are reporting serious shortage of teachers in certain branches which include anatomy, physiology and biochemistry. There are far better lucrative opportunities now open for medical college teachers in clinical research organizations, private medical or research departments of pharma-biotech companies. The government medical college teachers have the experience and the expertise in respective branches and this is an added advantage for the private sector to hire. The salaries offered in the private sector are more attractive than what is paid by the government medical colleges. This makes the posts lie vacant and difficult to fill up, a source at Bangalore Medical College said.