Foreign students doing PG at AIIMS Delhi not paid stipend

Foreign students doing PG at AIIMS Delhi not paid stipend

Rema.Nagarajan@timesgroup.com

17.09.2020

Over 50 foreign students, mostly from Nepal, doing post-graduate and super specialty courses in AIIMS Delhi are not paid a stipend though they do the same work as Indian students, working as junior residents even during Covid. The prime minister of Nepal took up the issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and was assured that the matter would be sorted out, but AIIMS argues it has good reason not to pay foreign students the stipend.

After being nudged by the health ministry, the two other autonomous central institutes, PGI Chandigarh and JIPMER, Pondicherry, have started paying foreign students the same stipend as their Indian counterparts. “We do not want to comment on what is happening in PGI or in JIPMER and we are not saying we are above the government. But we have put our arguments before the government,” said a spokesperson of AIIMS.

AIIMS officials point out that the prospectus states that foreign and sponsored students will not be paid stipends and that they had agreed to this at the time of admission. But a Delhi high court judgement in favour of the students in 2013 had pointed out that when it came to a fundamental right available to even non-citizens, to be paid for the work they do, the terms of the prospectus could not be binding. However, that judgment was later stayed till an appeal filed by AIIMS is adjudicated.

“We, as foreign nationals, might be in the same category as sponsored candidates, but we are not sponsored. We only submit a no-objection certificate to be admitted as foreign nationals. We are merely asking that we be paid for the work we do. We even did Covid duty just like others,” said one of the foreign candidates.