PATNA, Aug. 27 -- Outdoor patient department (OPD) services were affected partially across all 10 state-run medical colleges on Tuesday as MBBS interns of Bihar government-run medical institutions struck work on Tuesday, even as they allowed emergency services to continue unhindered, over their demand for hike in monthly stipend, said the medicos. The students, who met Bihar's health secretary, Lokesh Kumar Singh, claimed the government had on Monday initiated a proposal for a 33% hike in their monthly stipend from Rs.20,000 to Rs.27,000. The students are, however, demanding doubling their monthly stipend to Rs.40,000, given that neighbouring states like West Bengal (Rs.43,000) and Odisha (Rs.40,000) pay their interns more than Bihar. The Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, the state government's autonomous medical college, also paid their MBBS interns Rs.32,000 a month, claimed the protesting medicos. The students decided to continue with their protest on Wednesday, but not force closure of the OPD services, and instead adopt a different form of protest, which they did not spell out. The students' mandate whether to continue their indefinite strike was fractured till late Tuesday evening, as they sat in a huddle to discuss their plan of agitation after the state government's proposal of a 33% hike against their demand of a 100% increase in stipend. The medicos, in a statement said the interns in Bihar receive Rs.20,000 per month, which was not only grossly inadequate given the current inflation and workload, but translated to a daily remuneration of Rs.650 (approx) that was comparable with the daily wage workers. The students claimed that as per the state government's resolution 125(1) of February 20, 2014, the department of health had to revise the stipends for interns and postgraduates medicos every three years. However, in their case, the government was yet to revise their internship after 2022, leaving the interns in severe financial distress. Earlier in the day, final year MBBS students doing their internship, took out demonstrations on the campus of their respective medical college hospitals and forced closure of the OPD services while allowing emergency services to continue....