Iqbal Ahmad is one of the few people who believe that service to the poor is as important as serving the nation. Hence, even after becoming an IAS officer in 2010, his desire was to cure poor people in the hospitals.
This young officer is currently working as a district magistrate of the Champawat district, Uttarakhand. At the same time, he continues his medical practice and works for one hour every morning at a district hospital.
In 2009, Iqbal completed his MBBS from Kasturba Medical College, Karnataka, and a year later, he was selected for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). Thus, his dream of practicing as a doctor remained unfulfilled.
Now, after seven long years, he is finally doing what he wanted to i.e he is providing free medical consultancy to the poor.
Back in 2010, he had “no formal registration” to be a doctor. On September 15, the Uttarakhand medical council cleared the registration.
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Dr. MS Bora, chief medical officer of Champawat, appreciated his move and said,
DM Dr Iqbal’s decision would motivate our health department and the needy of the district would definitely benfit from his one-hour medical consultancy.
The Champawat district has only 42 doctors and one district hospital. There are other 21 private hospitals. The disturbing fact is there are only 1000 doctors against a requirement of 2,700 doctors. Thus, this kind of urgency inspired Iqbal.
Earlier, too, a senior IAS officer from Uttarakhand, Dr. Rakesh Kumar, had helped the poor people by providing free medical consultancy.
Our country needs more IAS officers like these. Respect!
