DW BUREAU / PATIALA More than 600 government and private doctors of Patiala along with medical dental students and some veteran and retired city doctors today organised a protest rally in Government Medical College in Patiala against the delay by the state government in accepting their pay commission related NPA demands. The protest rally and march was organised by Punjab State Medical and Dental Teachers Association, Patiala unit of PCMS Association and Indian Medical Association Patiala jointly to press upon the state government to restore the NPA of the government doctors and link it with basic pay for calculation of dearness and house rent allowances along with restoration of the academic allowance and fix it at Rs. 2500. There was complete shutdown of OPD and operation theatre services in Rajindra and TB hospitals in Patiala for more than three hours along with suspension of class room teaching of the medical dental students and all administrative duties by the medical dental faculty. While addressing the protesters, all speakers criticised the Punjab Government for humiliating the doctors by cutting in NPA instead of rewarding them as Covid warriors. Former president of Punjab Medical Council Dr Manmohan Singh, former register of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences Faridkot Dr Pyare Lal Garg, former Principal of Government Medical College Patiala Dr BL Bhardwaj, former President and General Secretary of PSMDTA Dr JPS Walia and Dr BS Sohal, former Civil Surgeon Patiala Dr Harish Malhotra, president and general secretary of IMA Patiala Dr Neeraj Goyal and Dr Nidhi Bansal, PCMS district leaders Dr Sudesh Partap Singh and Dr Jaswinder Singh, PSMDTA state acting president Dr Vijay Bodal, PSMDTA state joint secretary dental Dr Navjot Singh Khurana and Dr Darshanjit Singh Walia addressed the protesting doctors with appealed to the government to accept the NPA demand of the government doctors on priority and restore the health and medical services in the state to normal According to Dr. DS Bhullar, State General Secretary of PSMDTA the state wide protest of medical and dental teachers along with all other government doctors will continue till our demands are not accepted in total which include restoration of NPA to 25 percent and linking it with basic pay as earlier with Dearness and House Rent allowances made applicable to basic pay and NPA. (editor@dailyworld.in)