A meeting with newly appointed medical officers and super-specialist doctors in Himachal Pradesh has produced a raft of directives — and the sharpest one rewrites how the state's in-service doctors access postgraduate education. Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, ordered amendments to the state's PG/SS policy to allow Job Trainee Medical Officers to sit postgraduate courses under the 66.6 percent in-service GDO quota — and crucially, to continue drawing their salary and benefits while they study.

In the post, CM Sukhu outlined four concrete instructions. First: amend the PG/SS policy so that Job Trainee Medical Officers are explicitly permitted to pursue PG (MD/MS) and PG (MDS) programmes under the quota reserved for in-service General Duty Officers (GDOs), with salary and benefits protected throughout the course duration. Second: streamline the recruitment process for Senior Residents and Tutor Specialists in the state's medical colleges. Third: establish dedicated Geriatric Medicine departments at IGMC Shimla (Indira Gandhi Medical College) and RPGMC Tanda (Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College, Kangra). Fourth: exempt Job Trainee Medical Officers from sitting a repeat examination as a condition for regularisation.

The 66.6% Quota — What Is Actually Being Unlocked

The 66.6 percent in-service GDO quota in Himachal Pradesh's PG admissions is one of the state's primary retention levers — designed to keep government-employed doctors within the system by giving them a privileged pathway to specialisation. The problem has been definitional: Job Trainee Medical Officers, a category of contractual government doctors, have historically sat in a grey zone, uncertain whether they qualify as 'in-service' for quota purposes. Sukhu's directive closes that gap, formally including them and directing the department to protect their pay during the study period. For doctors who took government postings expecting career mobility, this is a significant material change.

Geriatrics at IGMC and RPGMC — Why Now

IGMC Shimla is Himachal Pradesh's oldest and largest government medical college, functioning as the state's primary referral hub. RPGMC Tanda anchors healthcare in the Kangra valley. Establishing Geriatric Medicine departments at both institutions is a direct response to Himachal Pradesh's rapidly ageing demographic profile — the state has among the higher proportions of elderly residents in north India, driven partly by youth out-migration. Dedicated geriatric units at these two colleges would create specialist capacity that currently does not formally exist at the government level.

Regularisation Relief and the Recruitment Streamlining Directive

The exemption from re-examination for regularisation addresses a long-standing grievance among Job Trainee doctors who had already cleared competitive processes to enter government service. Requiring a fresh exam for regularisation had been seen as redundant and demoralising. On the institutional side, streamlining Senior Resident and Tutor Specialist recruitment — a process that has in practice seen protracted delays — matters because teaching-hospital staffing directly affects both clinical output and the quality of postgraduate training the state can offer.

Taken together, Wednesday's directives sketch a coherent retention strategy: easier access to PG seats, pay security during study, smoother regularisation, and specialist infrastructure that makes a government medical career in Himachal Pradesh genuinely competitive. The department now faces the harder work of translating these instructions into gazette notifications and recruitment calendars.