PATNA, May 7 -- There's a strong resentment among faculty doctors at Patna's All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) over non-payment of conveyance allowance to them for the last six months, said officials familiar with the matter on Tuesday. ED Dr Saurabh Varshney, who met the faculty doctors in presence of the institute's president Dr Subrata Sinha on Monday, told them that the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW) had stopped the reimbursement of conveyance allowance, said a doctor privy to the meeting. He, however, did not share a copy of the ministry's order till Tuesday evening despite request by the faculty doctors to circulate it among them. "It is a ministry issue, and the institute has nothing to do with it," said Dr Varshney. He also denied that any doctor had sent him a representation regarding non-payment of conveyance. "It was our internal meeting, which is a routine affair. I don't understand how it concerns the media. It was just an interaction which the president of the institute wanted to have with the faculty doctors. No major issues were raised," said Dr Varshney, downplaying the issue. Around 250 existing faculty doctors at AIIMS were getting conveyance allowance up to a maximum of Rs 7,150 per month for visiting hospital outside duty hours and performing other official duties. The reimbursement of conveyance allowance has been stopped since October last year, said the aggrieved doctors. Doctors at other AIIMS, including Delhi and Jodhpur, continue to get conveyance allowance. The health ministry had allowed grant of conveyance allowance at the revised rate to Central Health Service (CHS) doctors working in hospitals from July 1, 2017. The same was approved at the third meeting of the standing finance committee (SFC) of AIIMS Patna under the chairmanship of the then Union health secretary Preeti Sudan on April 25, 2019. "Any order to stop reimbursement of conveyance allowance must come from the ministry, which had approved it and the same was also ratified by the SFC, the highest financial body of AIIMS Patna," said a doctor requesting anonymity. The Faculty Association of AIIMS Patna has decided to convene a meeting on Wednesday to chart its future course of action. The faculty doctors also raised the issue of complete opacity in the allotment of residential quarters to the employees of AIIMS. The doctors alleged that quarters were allocated on the whims and fancy of the administration. "There is no transparency of having a waitlist and making it public on the website of the institute or notice boards or circulating it among the doctors and staff so that officials get to know when their turn would come," said a doctor who attended the meeting. The doctors even alleged that the office of the deputy director, administration, responsible for allotment of quarters, did not give any acknowledgement or a sequence or ticket number to the applicant at the time of applying for a staff quarter. They said the institute did not follow a basic rule for allotment of quarters, which should be based on the date of joining and the date of eligibility of a certain classification of quarter to which an employee if eligible for. They alleged that quarters were allotted on a random basis, raising suspicion of foul play. The doctors said that many nursing officials had been allotted type IV quarters while doctors were kept waiting for their turn. Similarly, senior doctors, eligible for higher type V quarters were forced to stay in type IV due to shortage and had been kept waiting for around five years since applying for accommodation of their entitlement. Denying the allegation, Dr Varshney said, "I have not received any complaint so far. We have formed a committee for allotment of quarters and there is a proper laid down system for it. We, however, have a shortage of quarters as the number of faculty doctors has increased to 250 while we have around 80 flats for them. Around 80 new flats are under construction."...