Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 24: Health & Medical Education Department, J&K has clarified that its draft proposal brought by it is only aimed at strengthening the role of the Principals of the medical colleges as the academic heads of the Institution by delegating relatively un-important tasks of routine nature to other functionaries.
In a handout issued today, the Department said that the position of Administrators, Personal Officers and Administrative Officers existed in medical colleges for several years and these posts have been created to assist the Principals of medical colleges and relieve them of day-to-day routine administrative matters.
As role and responsibilities of these officers needed clarity and definition to avoid confusion, therefore, the draft proposal has been made to clearly define responsibilities so that accountability can be fixed.
“The Principal of a medical college provides academic leadership and facilitates research. This role of the Principal shall be impacted if he/she has to deal with routine administrative matters like electricity, sanitation and cleanliness of hospital premises or personal matters of employees,” the handout reads.
The initiative to define responsibilities of the Administrators, Personal Officers and Administrative Officers shall therefore strengthen the position of the Principal and he /she shall be able to devote more time to Healthcare, academics and research. “Delegation of authority does not mean that the executive authority of the Principal gets weakened. She remains the executive head of the Institution and all matters which presently require her approval as per rules shall continue to need her approval,” the handout reads further.
It further mentioned that no matter of clinical or non-clinical nature or academic or research is being delegated. “Medical professionals will continue to exercise all authorities in such matters on which they are experts. Therefore the apprehension of medical professionals is unfounded, it added.
Pertinent to mention here that Excelsior has yesterday consulted several medical professionals who had criticized the J&K H&ME Department for disempowering principals of medical colleges by bringing the draft proposal to delegate powers of executive heads of the medical institutions in the Union Territory to administrators, personal officers (POs) and administrative officers of Government Medical Colleges and subordinate departments of the Administrative Department.
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