Chandigarh, July 30 -- The Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) is yet to pay the arrears to the technical staff employees amounting to Rs.41 crore as per the 5-tier cadre structure of technical staff. The delay in implementing the cadre restructure has been worrying around 500 technical staff responsible for conducting over 10,000 tests in the institute on a daily basis. In the Institute Body meeting that took place on May 16, 2025, the apex body of the PGIMER has given approval to restructure the cadre of technical staff, but to no avail. With the restructure of technical staff cadre and having a 5-tier system, PGIMER is bound to pay Rs.41 crore funds pending since 1992 as per their promotion. In the month of July, PGIMER constituted a 5 member committee to look into the matter of restructuring and were directed to check the number of employees including those who have retired since 1992, who are bound to get promotional benefits in the 5-tier system. But technical staff alleged that they haven't received any positive outcome from the authorities. Technical staff in the PGIMER include all professionals conducting first and second line of testing. Their duties include conducting complete blood count, CT scan, MRI, ECG, histopathological testing etc. There are 527 sanctioned posts of lab technicians at the institute, out of which, 122 are of those conducting X-RAY and 36 posts are in radiotherapy. Till now, technical staff was getting retired at level 3 i.e the post of technical assistant and many stayed on this post for decades without any further promotion. Now with a five-tier system, technical assistants will be further promoted to lab supervisor and senior technical officer. In a letter written to Dr Vivek Lal, PGIMER, PGI Medical Technologists Union requested to implement the cadre restructure order in a time bound manner. As per the rough estimates of PGIMER, the financial implications of technical cadre restructure from 1992 to 2019 is around Rs.41,30,99,109. Out of the total amount, Rs.33 crore is for laboratory technicians, Rs.6 crore for X-Ray and Rs.1 crore for radiotherapy. A former PGI medical technologists Union president, Dr RK Garg mentioned that the other national importance institutes including AIIMS, JIPMER Puducherry has implemented the five-level cadre system for their technical staff in 2017 but PGIMER has taken more than a decade to implement it even after Central Tribunal Court's judgement in favour of technical staff cadre restructure in 2013. A senior technician working at PGIMER, said, "Many of our seniors retired after being on the same post for 2-3 decades. It has brought stagnation to the growth level and mental exhaustion to us for not seeing any growth despite working on double capacity." Though the orders were issued on May 16, 2025 in the 118th meeting of the Institute Body, the union has been demanding the restructuring of the cadre since 1994. Pankaj Rai, deputy director, PGI, said, "A committee has been constituted. We are trying to implement the 5-tier cadre structure and give benefits to beneficiaries as soon as possible."...