Trainee doctors have vowed to continue their protest until their demand is met, rejecting the government's proposal to increase their stipend from Tk25,000 to Tk35,000 starting in July.
This decision comes after their blockade of the Shahbagh intersection on Sunday to demand a stipend hike.
After the blockade, Dr Md Sayedur Rahman, special assistant in the health ministry, held a meeting with representatives of the protesting doctors.
According to the doctors, he proposed increasing the stipend to Tk30,000 from January and Tk35,000 from July.
However, they rejected this proposal and demanded that the stipend be raised to Tk35,000 starting in January.
Dr Nur Nabi, a trainee doctor at Dhaka Medical College, said: "Dr Sayedur Rahman invited us to a meeting where he informed us that the stipend has been temporarily raised to Tk30,000, which was managed through a cut budget. He assured us that the stipend would be adjusted to Tk34,600 according to the ninth grade scale, and increased to Tk35,000 from July. He even offered to issue a formal notification if we did not trust his verbal assurance."
Nur Nabi added that Sayedur requested 16 days to address their demands. "We have insisted on raising the stipend to Tk35,000 from January. As a compromise, we proposed that the stipend could be set at Tk30,000 initially, with the remaining Tk5,000 to be paid later as arrears once the new budget is approved."
He added: "Our demand is clear: the stipend must be increased to Tk35,000 starting in January, or we will not leave the streets."
Although vehicles used alternative routes, causing minimal traffic congestion, some delays were reported on the road from Science Lab to Gulistan.
