India, Aug. 20 -- Frustration among Telangana's AYUSH house surgeons and PG scholars boiled over on Thursday, with nearly a hundred of them marching into the AYUSH Commissionerate office in Secunderabad, demanding that officials sit down and talk. It is the 17th day of the agitation.

The protest is rooted in a pay gap that has persisted for years. Under the Telangana AYUSH Joint Action Committee's banner, medicos point out that their stipend has barely been revised since 2016, even though a government order, GO Ms No. 77, is supposed to guarantee them pay on par with Allopathy. Dr Anurag Singh of the Telangana State Ayurveda PG and House Surgeons Association said Allopathy stipends have gone up eight times in the last decade and a half, ...