chennai shortage of senior faculty and delay in promotions may hit the tamil nadu governments drive to increase the number of mbbs seats and plans to set up more medical colleges in the state the tamil nadu government doctors association has accused the state government of delaying the promotion of several doctors to the position of associate professors even as colleges are short of faculty around 60 faculty members in the 19 government medical college hospitals were promoted to the post of associate professor in march 2014 however following an increase in the number of mbbs seats more vacancies came up for the post of associate professor the state government agreed to set up a panel to select an additional 75 candidates for promotion said dr k senthil president of tamil nadu government doctors association after several months of delay the panel was formed in december and the counselling dates were announced nothing happened after that he said the department of radiodiagnosis has the highest number of vacancies for the post of associate professors followed by the departments of social and preventive medicine and anatomy doctors say some departments in colleges like thiruvarur and villupuram none of the vacancies of associate professor has been filled when mci comes for inspection doctors from other colleges are deputed for a day this when doctors are waiting in line to fill the vacancy said an assistant professor in a government medical college in chennai senior officials in the directorate of medical education said all the promotions that were due in 2014 have been given and candidates selected by the temporary panel will be considered this year