Wrong info given to assembly: Minister writes to speaker

 

Mangaluru, 04 Jan 2014: Under fire from the speaker Kagodu Thimappa for supposedly having given wrong information to the state assembly, U T Khader, minister for health and family welfare has striven to put the records straight.

 

Khader in a letter to the Speaker has clarified that he has not furnished any wrong information to the legislative assembly in the recently concluded session of the legislature. Kagodu incidentally has taken this issue to the Chief Minister.

 

In the letter, which was made available to the media here on Sunday, Khader said the issue of revising consolidated pay to doctors on contract was doing the rounds of the health department that he heads, the finance department, department of personnel and administrative reforms and the law department from February 2013 and December 2014. The file reached the finance department on December 17 after the law department furnished its opinion.

 

The finance department raised several queries with regard to pay revision as per the Sixth Pay Commission and returned the file some four to five times to his department, the minister said. The finance department even sent back his department’s proposal dated September 19, 2014 with regard to revising the pay of regular medical officers and enhance it on a par with teaching staff in the medical education department who receive the AICTE pay scale, Khader said.

 

The department had recommended AICTE pay scale consequent to strike by doctors in August 2014, the minister said. Following discussions in the Assembly and demand to increase pay for doctors, his department sent another proposal to finance department to enhance allowance to general medical officers from Rs 5,000-Rs 10,000 and specialists ranging from Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000. This was sent to the finance department on December 30, he noted.

 

Asserting that he has clarified the issue raised by Kagodu Thimappa with CM Siddaramaiah, Khader said he had even spoken to the Speaker over phone. "I have conveyed to him that I will meet him (the Speaker) personally to explain the matter," Khader said. The Speaker who had written to the CM in this issue had maintained that the minister is answerable for his acts of omission and commission in the assembly and officials could not be blamed for it.