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Punjab Cabinet clears hiring of 300 private specialists to address staff shortage in public hospitals

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab Cabinet on Tuesday approved the empanelment of around 300 private specialist doctors across 12 key specialities, marking the first such move in the state to address a severe shortage of specialists in public healthcare institutes. The empanelled doctors will receive Rs 100 per patient for both OPD and IPD examinations. The initiative aims to strengthen secondary healthcare services by improving specialist availability across government hospitals. The empanelment will be carried out at the district level through Civil Surgeons, and the doctors will also be paid for emergency calls, minor and major surgeries, procedures and other services. A cap has been set on the number of patients each doctor can treat, between 50 and 150 for OPD, and between 2 and 20 for IPD. The current shortage of specialist doctors across all disciplines stands at around 900. Incentives have also been fixed for minor and major surgeries performed by these doctors. The specialists will be drawn from Medicine, Paediatrics, Psychiatry, Dermatology, Chest and TB, Surgery, Gynaecology, Orthopaedics, Ophthalmology, ENT and Anaesthesiology. Earlier, the government had empanelled only general doctors for Aam Aadmi Clinics, not hospitals. These specialist doctors, however, are being empanelled specifically for hospitals. Speaking to the media after the Cabinet meeting, Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema said that to retain doctors in government hospitals, doctors on night duty will receive Rs 1,000 for being called during the day, and vice versa. Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann has asked officers to come up with a new incentive-based policy for doctors and teachers serving in border areas. This has been done as employees prefer not to be posted there. We want to ensure last-mile delivery of health and education services, he added. The Cabinet also approved the insertion of Rule 28A, Uniform Disciplinary and Appellate Framework, into the Punjab Cooperative Societies Rules, 1963. This will remove duplication of appellate channels, prevent conflicting decisions within the same board or its committees, clarify the chain of command in disciplinary proceedings and ensure that appeals are heard only once within the institution. The new rule will also protect employee rights through due process and strengthen institutional accountability by defining authority at each level, bringing uniformity across apex institutions and central cooperative banks in the cooperative sector. The Cabinet further approved amendments to the Punjab Minor Minerals Rules, 2013 in accordance with the Punjab State Minor Minerals (Amendment) Policy, 2025. These new rules and modifications were required for allocating mining rights to Mining Lease Holders of Crusher Mining Sites and Landowner Mining Sites in the state.