Monday, May 29 2006 09:40 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The striking anti-reservation medicos yesterday(May 28, 2006) talks with the government but the exercise failed to make headway as the students and resident doctors insisted the Centre give its response in writing to their demands and decided to continue their agitation.

During the three-hour talks, the Government government is understood to have conveyed to the medicos its decision to double the number of under graduate seats in medical education institutions, hike the retirement age of AIIMS faculty members from 60 to 65 and set up six more AIIMS across the country.

The strikers, however, rejected the same saying there was no clear cut plan to implement them and demanded written assurances from the Prime Minister on their other sets of demand, sources said.

The students and doctors alleged the Centre was talking in 'too many voices" and the whole plan of increase in seats for the general quota lacked clarity.

"The government has not given any conclusive statement. It is talking in different voices and we will continue our strike till our demands are met," Dr Manish Nathani, a spokesman of Youth For Equality' spearheading the agitation, told reporters here.

On the other hand, Union Minister Oscar Fernandes, who led the government delegation at the talks with the medicos, said government was united in its response to the students.

"We have told them that general category seats in educational institutes will not be reduced. Not a single student will be affected," he said.