Onlykashmir.in News Desk
The Jammu and Kashmir Government is weighing a phased recruitment drive for BDS doctors after a recruitment freeze in the cadre stretching back to 2008, Health Minister Sakina Itoo informed the Legislative Assembly on Thursday. The disclosure came in response to a specific query raised in the House on the status of dental doctor recruitment across the Union Territory.
Itoo told members that the Health and Medical Education Department had examined the long-pending issue and had subsequently forwarded a formal proposal to the Finance Department for further consideration and clearance. “The government will consider phased recruitment based on availability of funds,” the Minister said, signalling that any fresh hiring would depend on budgetary allocation rather than proceed as a single, immediate exercise.
The near two-decade gap in BDS recruitment has meant that government dental establishments across Jammu and Kashmir have had to function with an aging cadre of dental surgeons, even as the population dependent on public healthcare has grown substantially. Vacant posts in the dental wing of the health department have periodically been flagged by professional associations and by legislators representing both urban and rural constituencies, who argue that inadequate staffing has affected access to basic oral healthcare, particularly outside Srinagar and Jammu city.
The government’s current position, placing the matter with the Finance Department pending availability of funds, suggests that any recruitment notification is unlikely to be immediate. Health Minister Itoo, who also holds charge of Social Welfare and School and Higher Education in the Omar Abdullah-led administration, has in recent months separately overseen the appointment of Medical Officers to strengthen general healthcare delivery in remote and underserved districts of the Union Territory, an initiative distinct from the BDS cadre but reflecting the wider staffing pressures facing the health department.
Opposition members in the Assembly have periodically used the question hour to press the government on cadre-specific vacancies, arguing that piecemeal, phased approaches risk leaving critical gaps in specialist healthcare delivery unaddressed for extended periods.
