Gandhinagar, Mar 19 (IANS): Over 83 percent of MBBS passouts from the government-run medical colleges have opted to skip the mandatory service in rural areas of Gujarat in the last two years, the state government revealed in the Assembly on Thursday.

Out of the 2,269 MBBS passouts in the last two years as on December 2020, as many as 1,894 did not turn up for their services in rural areas, while only 373 youth displayed their loyalty towards the state, which is a paltry 16.43 percent.

In 2019, the state government had initiated policy changes, increased the bond amount from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 20 lakh and also brought down the earlier mandated service tenure from three years to one year in order to boost rural healthcare. But all these efforts seem to have failed to yield the desired results.

It may be noted that Gujarat's rural healthcare system had suffered due to an insufficient number of doctors during the tough times of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Also, only 239 of the 1,894 MBBS passouts who refused to serve in the rural areas had paid the bond amount, which is only 12.61 percent.

Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, who also holds the health portfolio, informed the House that only Rs 12.8 crore has been levied from those who did not serve in the rural pockets, while the outstanding amount is a whopping Rs 69.53 crore.

However, Congress alleged that owing to the ineffectiveness of the BJP government in the state, the rural people in Gujarat are compelled to visit private doctors.