Doctors raise concern over posts earmarked for Specific Learning Disability candidates

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In its latest notification to recruit 1,100 assistant surgeons, the Medical Services Recruitment Board (MRB) has earmarked 18 vacancies for candidates with Specific Learning Disability (SLD), in addition to a backlog of 51 SLD vacancies.

A section of government doctors has flagged concerns, saying this allocation dilutes the broader “Differently Abled Person” (DAP) category, as the number of eligible candidates under SLD quota is relatively limited.

On November 21, the MRB issued a notification for direct recruitment to 1,100 vacancies of assistant surgeon (general). Under the DAP category, 21 vacancies were earmarked for persons with Locomotor Disability (LD) and 18 for SLD. There were 25 backlogs for LD and 51 for SLD.

Prabu M., State president, Differently Abled Government Doctors Association, said this was the case with last year’s MRB notification as well. The association then wrote to the Health Secretary saying that while MBBS selection follows specific disability criteria, MRB has included SLD without proper justification, resulting in several vacancies remaining unfilled under DAP quota. The deviation in selection has led to unfilled vacancies, which could have been allocated to eligible doctors with disabilities. “There is hardly any candidate in the SLD category in the State. We had raised the issue with the Welfare of the Differently Abled Department officials. It looks like MRB is replicating Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission recruitment criteria,” he said.

“Last year, there were no SLD candidates for the MRB recruitment. So, of the 71 earmarked posts for SLD, MRB allotted 20 for LD category after we flagged the vacant posts. The remaining 51 have been included as backlog vacancies now,” Dr. Prabu said, adding that the disability criteria should be reviewed and the overall cut-off mark for Persons with Disabilities (PwD) should be reduced to 20%.

P. Saminathan, president of the Service Doctors and Post Graduates Association, said despite having highlighted the issue last year, MRB continues to repeat it. “Allocating so many vacancies for SLDs when candidates are relatively limited is unacceptable. These vacancies will not be filled, leading to a backlog in the assistant surgeon posts under DAP quota. This will dilute the availability of vacancies for PwDs. We urge the Health Department to look into this.

“The eligibility criteria can be incentivised by decreasing the qualifying mark by 10% with a vision to empower differently abled doctors so that more number of doctors with disabilities will get recruited, and backlog vacancies are avoided hereafter,” he said.