The Jammu and Kashmir Health and Medical Education Department on Tuesday said that over 1,000 posts of doctors are currently vacant across the Union Territory. According to details shared by the department, Kashmir has 797 of these vacancies, including 24 senior consultants, 253 consultants, 458 medical officers and 62 dental surgeons. The Jammu division, according to the statistics, has 288 vacant consultant posts as of February 2026.
“The districts of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir are not facing an acute shortage of specialists… In order to overcome the shortage of doctors in peripheral and remote areas, the government has recently referred 480 posts of medical officers to the J&K Public Service Commission for the selection of suitable candidates,” the Health and Medical Education department said.
It also said that the department was fully monitoring issues related to the referral of direct recruitment vacancies as well as the filling up of promotion-quota posts on a priority basis and that necessary steps for filling up these posts have been taken into consideration from time to time. The department said that once these posts are filled, the selected doctors will be deputed to the far-flung areas of the UT where they will serve in some of the remote sections of society as per policy.
With the establishment of seven Government Medical Colleges across the UT, the department said the referral load to GMC Jammu and GMC Srinagar has reduced considerably as many specialist services have been extended to other districts. In addition, consultants and medical officers posted at Sub-District Hospitals (SDHs) and Primary Health Centres (PHCs) are actively delivering services at the peripheral level, thereby minimising routine referrals.
Since the establishment of these facilities, the pressure on GMC Srinagar has considerably reduced over the past few years. On the paramedical front, the department said over 292 vacancies in the non-Gazetted/paramedical category from the Directorate of Family Welfare, Maternity and Child Health (MCH), and Immunisation have been referred to the Jammu and Kashmir Services Selection Board (JKSSB) for recruitment, which stands advertised for the selection of suitable candidates.
Further, 290 vacancies in the non-gazetted/paramedical category from the Directorate of Health Services, Jammu, have also been referred to the J&KSSB for recruitment. Another 608 posts of the Directorate of Health Services, while 802 non-gazetted, multi-tasking staff vacancies and sanitation worker posts pertaining to the Directorate of Health Services, Kashmir, are under examination in the department for further referral to JKSSB.
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