Tadepalli: Former Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy urged Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to invite junior doctor representatives for talks, revise their stipends, and end the strike before poor patients are pushed further out of the government healthcare system.
The TDP government refused a 15% stipend hike for junior doctors, citing the financial situation, which would otherwise incur an additional budget expense of 87.9 crores. Nearly 9,000 interns, postgraduate doctors, super-speciality doctors, and senior residents across 19 government medical colleges in Andhra Pradesh have been on strike for two weeks. The stipend hike for junior doctors should have happened in January 2026, and there has been a delay of around eight months this year, doctors said. Surgeries at government teaching hospitals have fallen by more than 70 percent during this period, and hospital revenue linked to procedures has dropped by close to 40 percent statewide.
YS Jagan referred to GO No. 287, which provides for a 15 percent stipend increase for junior doctors every two years. Jagan Mohan Reddy said the previous YSRCP government went beyond that requirement and raised stipends by 42.4 percent, also recognizing super-specialty course candidates as senior residents and increasing their pay further, for an overall rise of 77 percent during that period. AYUSH junior doctors, he said, were brought up to parity with their allopathic counterparts. Against that history, he described the current government’s offer of a 3 to 5 percent increase, amid rising prices and living costs, as an unfair response to doctors seeking more than 15 percent.
As per the rates effective from January 1, 2024, here’s the stipend comparison across proposed increase percentages:
He argued that the practical cost of the standoff is already visible on hospital floors. With junior doctors central to running casualty wards, ICUs, and labor rooms in teaching hospitals, the strike has begun affecting emergency services directly, and he placed responsibility for that on what he called the government’s stubborn attitude.
Jagan Mohan Reddy set the current strain against the state of the medical infrastructure his government left behind. He said 17 new government medical colleges were taken up simultaneously between 2019 and 2024, an effort he described as unprecedented nationally, with five completed and classes started, and a sixth made ready to begin, bringing the total operational to six. He alleged that instead of completing the remaining colleges, the current government is attempting to sell them off. He further alleged that Nadu Nedu infrastructure works at government teaching and other hospitals have been halted, that hospitals are now short of medicines meeting WHO and GMP standards, and that the zero vacancy policy has been abandoned, with close to 50,000 healthcare personnel appointed under the previous government being gradually phased out.
He also alleged that the Family Doctor program has been weakened, that specialist doctors have been withdrawn from community health centers, and that village and Urban Health Clinics have been rendered largely ineffective. Aarogyasri network hospitals say payment processing has stalled for roughly two weeks amid the dispute, and dues owed to the scheme have crossed Rs 3,000 crore. Combined with the Aarogyasri backlog, he said, the damage adds up to a public healthcare system under sustained strain, now compounded by a strike affecting the very doctors hospitals depend on to function day to day.
“Chandrababu garu, at least now, give up this arrogance,” Jagan Mohan Reddy said, calling on the Chief Minister to open talks with junior doctor representatives immediately, settle the stipend dispute at an appropriate level, and ensure poor patients are not left paying the price for the standoff.
