The Tamil Nadu Health Department, has reduced the bond period for non-service postgraduate doctors, who have completed their PG courses in or after 2019, from two years to one year, as per an official Government Order (GO) released on January 11, 2024.

The bond amount has been halved from Rs 40 lakh to Rs 20 lakh for those who completed PG degree courses and from Rs 20 lakh to Rs 10 lakh for those who completed PG diploma courses.

Earlier, the state government had implemented the same for PG doctors who completed their PG courses in the years 2022 and 2023 after repeated requests from the Tamil Nadu Resident Doctors Association (TNRDA) and Tamil Nadu Medical Students Association (TNMSA).

Now, the same has been implemented for all PG batches from 2019 onwards.

So far, non-service PG doctors in Tamil Nadu were mandated to serve a rural service bond for two years and if they fail to do so, they will have to pay the amount as per a bond executed at the time of admission.

Dr Keerthy Varman M, General Secretary of Tamil Nadu Resident Doctors Association (TNRDA) and former president of Tamil Nadu Medical Students Association (TNMSA), told EdexLive, “We want to thank the health department and Tamil Nadu government for this move and we consider this as a victory of TNRDA. This bond system should be completely abolished throughout the country and not only in the medical field. The bond system works on a ‘hire and fire’ policy and is completely exploitative for doctors. The government should instead focus on recruiting N-doctors on a regular basis.”