Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij on Tuesday said 450 regular doctors will be recruited through a competitive examination to ensure transparency and merit-based selection in the State.

He said that the State Government is committed to provide better health services to the people of the State. “Recently we had decided to deploy 1652 home guards in all the government hospitals to provide full-proof security to the doctors in the State,” he added.Vij said, “Department received complaints of shortage of doctors in many hospitals of the State. To fill the vacant posts of doctors in various hospitals of the State, we have decided to recruit 450 regular doctors in the State.”

The Health Minister said the complete information about the examination of doctors will be made available to the candidates through various means. 87 posts are reserved for the General Category, 290 for the Scheduled Caste (SC), 17 for the Backward Class A (BCA), 8 for the Backward Class B (BCB), 28 for Ex-Servicemen (ESM) and 17 for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS). This includes the provision of horizontal and vertical reservation for 53 posts of Physically Handicapped (PH) and 5 posts of Eligible Sports Persons (ESP).

Sources in the department said Haryana is witnessing an acute shortage of doctors and there are massive gaps in health infrastructure, contradicting the government’s claims that “health for all” is a priority.

While Community Health Centres (CHCs) have inadequate strength of specialists, Primary Health Centres (PHCs) have insufficient number of doctors. Civil hospitals are facing a severe crunch of specialists. Around 80 doctors hold administrative positions in the department, they added.