Services in major government-run hospitals in Andhra Pradesh were restored Friday as 11,000 junior doctors returned to work after calling off their six-day strike.


This followed an undertaking by them before the state high court Thursday that they would call off the protest and not resort to more strikes to press for their demands.

The court recorded the statement of B.R. Suresh Babu, president of the AP Junior Doctors Association, that they would file a writ petition listing out their grievances against the government.

He also assured the court that they would not go on strike even if the court did not grant them relief after the hearing.

The high court directed the state government not to take any action against the junior doctors.

The doctors in their petition will complain to the court about the government not implementing the recommendations of the Jeevan Reddy Committee, formed on after a 42-day strike by junior doctors in December 2003-January 2004.

The core demands of junior doctors include a ceiling on the number of medical colleges in the state, revocation of essentiality certificates granted to 15 private medical colleges by previous Telugu Desam Party (TDP) regime, cancellation of an order issued by the present government to allow more private colleges and maintenance of records of teaching staff working in private medical colleges.