System of Compulsory Service Bonds For MBBS To Be Abolished

The medical education department is contemplating to abolish the system bonds for MBBS students. “An order to abolish the bond system will be issued in a week’s time,” said a reliable source in the medical education department.

The bond system was introduced in 1970 to fill the position of MBBS doctors in the rural areas, public health or medical education department. The MBBS students had to give an undertaking to the government saying after completion of the course the he/she would serve the government for one year, failing which he/she had to pay Rs.50,000 to the government. The bond amount was subsequently increase over the years in steps, which reached Rs.10 Lakhs in 2008.

The government is not requiring so many fresh graduates as about 2000 MBBS students pass out every year. Also, the fact is, while the bond was in force, the fresher MBBS doctors were reluctant to take jobs in rural parts and used to find loop holes in the system to avoid rural job assignment and as such, despite the Rs.10,000 bond, the department found it difficult to execute it against the erring students.

Moreover, department was not in position to provide job to so many of the doctors produced every year under the bond and so the entire exercise to secure the bond from the students was futile.

Students as well as medical teachers have welcomed government’s move, saying it will put an end to the harassment of students. The condition of bond was being used as a tool to harass the students in isolated cases, say some sources which did not want to be identified.