Meeting between junior doctors, WB government conclude; both sides finalizing minutes
KOLKATA: The meeting between the West Bengal government and the agitating junior doctors got over after nearly two hours, after which both sides were in the process of finalizing the minutes of the meeting, sources said on Monday night.
Escorted by a pilot police vehicle, around 30 medics arrived at West Bengal Mamata Banerjee’s Kalighat residence at 6: 20 pm.
The meeting, which was originally scheduled at 5 pm, began around 7 pm.
The invite was sent by Chief Secretary Manoj Panth, who also assured the doctors that the minutes of the meeting would be signed by both parties, and copies will be given to each at the end.
The previous attempts to resolve the issue got stuck due to the state government's rejection of the doctors' demand for live-streaming and video recording of the meeting.
The agitating medics later agreed to a compromise, now only asking to record the minutes of the meeting and receive a signed copy.
Earlier in the evening, responding to the mail by Pant this morning inviting them for talks, the agitating doctors said they are willing to attend the meeting and place their demands before the chief minister.
"As law-abiding citizens of the country, we are more than willing to attend the meeting. But it would have been really appreciated if the place of the meeting would have been an official and an administrative place as the matter is related to governance," the doctors said in a reply mail.
The doctors mentioned that the arrest of the Tala police station OC by the CBI in the RG Kar case increases the significance of the transparency of the meeting even more than before.
"We would like to emphasise that the meeting be videographed by separate videographers of both the parties. If not possible from your side, entire video file of the meeting be handed over to the doctor representatives.
If that is not possible, then the minutes of the full transcript of the meeting be recorded and formulated by both the parties and duly signed by all the attendees and handed over at the end of the meeting," the agitating doctors said.
Soon after, the Chief Secretary responded by saying that "both the parties will sign the minutes of the meeting and copies will be shared with each party to ensure clarity".
The West Bengal government on Monday "for the fifth and the final time" invited the protesting junior doctors for talks to end the RG Kar impasse, two days after the dialogue failed to take off over disagreement on live-streaming of the meeting.
In an email to the protesting junior doctors, Pant asked them to reach Banerjee's residence at Kalighat at 5 pm on Monday for the talks.