Is AIIMS not giving PG seats to doctors with disabilities?

Despite the disability rights law of 2016 which stipulate 5% reservation to the MBBS doctors with disabilities in PG seats of the seven All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), barely any seats are given to them even after clearing the entrance exam.

In the last three years, just 0.4% of seats have been given to them, and those few who got the admission for PG seats were mostly given non-clinical subjects which have few takers.

As per the law, since 2018, out of more than 4,000 PG seats in various AIIMS institutes, 200 should have gone to people with disabilities. However, the real picture is only 17 have been given to them.

Satendra Singh, Professor of physiology at University College of Medical Sciences said to Shiksha, " There is something fishy when it comes to AIIMS giving seats to disable doctors. The law is not being implemented as it should be, and the institute seems biased when it comes to giving seats to them. This has been happening for a long time. Disabled doctors raised this issue many times. There is a WhatsApp group of disabled doctors where this issue is raised several times. Even when these doctors get selected in the entrance exam, it is almost certain that they get rejected during the online counselling. There is a PIL filed in the Delhi High Court which says that AIIMS is not providing adequate reservation to persons with disabilities in the PG seats." 
 "They are called the premier medical institute, they must respect the diversity. Barriers and discrimination are there and they must rectify it soon, if not that means they are doing this deliberately," he added. 

"As per current data, a total of 35 persons with benchmark disabilities (PWBD) candidates have qualified for seat allocation. Seventeen out of 31 opted for AIIMS as first preference and 15 opted for AIIMS as second preference. In the mock round, the choices filled by the candidates were not available at AIIMS and hence no seat was allocated at AIIMS. This may change in the subsequent rounds," said Randeep Guleria to TOI.

A doctor with a disability said to TOI, “Unlike the seats reserved for OBC, SC, and ST, which are shown in the issued seat matrix by branch or speciality, for disabled doctors, divide the speciality in which these seats are available. Instead, it shows the total number of seats, which forces candidates with disabilities to blindly choose without knowing which discipline is open to them. This is based on FCNA. That’s why so many candidates are rejected or rejected because they have no choice."

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