Meet IAS officer Iqbal Ahmad who becomes doctor to serve poor

Iqbal Ahmad, joined the civil services in 2010. He is now the district magistrate of Champawat district in Uttarakhand. The Kanpur-born Ahmad completed his MBBS from Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore in Karnataka in 2009. He was selected for Indian Administrative Service (IAS), the very next year. However he wanted to give free medical consultancy to the poor. He had to wait for another seven years to get registered with the Uttarakhand medical council. He got the registration on September 15 this year and on the very next Friday, he walked into the district hospital and started his medical practice for the first time. He has decided to serve for one hour every morning at Champawat district hospital. As reported by HT, Champawat has only 42 doctors out of the 95 sanctioned. It has one district hospital and 21 other hospitals besides about 1,500 OPDs. Uttarakhand has almost 60% shortfall of doctors. Against a requirement of 2,700 doctors state has just 1,000 doctors.