Hyderabad, January 14: Doctors from the Telangana region floated `Telangana Doctors Forum’ to do their bit in attaining separate Telangana State.
In an effort to strengthen their role and create awareness among the people on the need for a separate State, the doctors will organise `Telangana Vaidya Garjana’ at Osmania Medical College grounds on January 22.
Speaking to reporters here today, the Forum chairman A Gopal Kishan said that the people’s urge for separate Telangana even 50 years after it was merged with Andhra state indicates that injustice was done to them in the united Andhra Pradesh.
“Of the three regions in the erstwhile Hyderabad State comprising Telangana, Marathwada and Karnataka, there is a demand only for separate Telangana but not other regions which shows the indifference meted out by Andhra rulers towards their brothers in Telangana,’’ he pointed out.
Gopal Kishan said that the doctors from different disciplines of medical fraternity including Allopathy, Homeopathy, Unani, Ayurveda, Siddha and Naturopathy and members of medical, para-medical, nursing, junior doctors and even Class IV employees will participate in the meeting scheduled on January 22.
He said that efforts were on to bring together professionals like doctors, engineers, advocates, gazetted and non-gazetted officers and other intellectuals to form a Joint Action Committee.
Stating that politicians have always betrayed people in the struggle for separate Telangana, Gopal Kishan said that the JAC will act as a `watchdog’ till separate State is achieved.
Babu Rao and Ram Kishan, members of the Forum, stated that the Government never followed the local and non-local rules when it came to allocation of medical seats in Osmania, Gandhi and Kakatiya colleges.
All these medical colleges, which are in Telangana, have more than 50 per cent nonlocal students though they are eligible for only 15-20 per cent, they pointed out.
“Mahatma Gandhi Memorial hospital in Warangal is the only major hospital established in Telangana region after Andhra Pradesh was formed, while everybody knows about the numerous hospitals that came up in the rest of the State,’’ Ram Kishan said. Babu Rao said that there are about 900 hospitals in Andhra and Rayalaseema regions but only 280 hospitals in Telangana districts despite having nearly equal population.
NIMS former director Raji Reddy, Indian Medical Association president DN Reddy, the Forum members Balbir Singh Yadav, Ram Singh, Lakshma Reddy, Osmania Medical College Telangana Junior Doctors Association president Srikanth and many other doctors were present.
—Agencies