bhubaneswar in the backdrop of criticism of the indian armys sahayak system a somewhat similar allegation has surfaced in odisha only this time the complainants are post graduate medical students who claim they are being treated as domestic servants by their college professors the medical students alleged that their department heads and professors engage them in fetching groceries ask them to cook their meals drop their children to schools get them breakfast free of cost arrange drinks help them in their private clinical practice and assist them in hosting birthday parties given the serious nature of the allegations the state government on thursday has ordered a probethe students further alleged that their senior faculty members make them pay for the hospitality bills of external examiners including their food and lodging sightseeing as well as expensive gifts putting them through physical mental and fiscal suffering it has been alleged that the head of departments hods and professors are engaging pg students for their own personal and domestic work neglecting the treatment of patients and education of the students you are therefore requested to cause an inquiry into the allegation and take appropriate action against the erring hodsprofessors immediately additional secretary surajit das wrote to the heads of all three governmentrun medical colleges at burla berhampur and cuttackthe three medical colleges burlas vss institute of medical sciences and research vimsar mkcg medical college berhampur and scb medical college and hospital cuttack have around 400 post graduate seats das when contacted by toi said there is an allegation the government has taken it seriously and ordered a probe let the inquiry be complete before we jump into any conclusion at this stage das said there were specific complaints from students of a particular college the government has asked the colleges to submit the report within seven days and take steps to ensure such things do not happen in futurethe government order comes after the director medical education and training dmet on march 4 wrote to the medical colleges regarding a complaint it had received from students where they alleged they were being used as domestic servants besides making them pay for the hospitality of external examiners the dmet wrote to the colleges saying it would conduct periodic checks to avoid any such incidenta crosssection of pg students toi spoke to said such a practice does exist they always keep us on tenterhooks making us do all sorts of things they threaten to spoil our career unless we fall in line said a student pleading anonymity sidharth das principal of scb said the government letter is general in nature issued to the college we will inquire if any such practice is prevalent anywhere he said sonamali bag the director of vimsar said the institute will conduct a thorough probe to find out the truth