Foreign medical graduates (FMGs) undergoing internships in Telangana will resume their peaceful protest from Wednesday, November 4, after repeated meetings with Health Minister C. Damodar Raja Narasimha and assurances from officials failed to produce a written commitment on stipend parity with Indian Medical Graduates (IMGs).

The interns say they called off their agitation for 10 days to give the government time to act. Nothing concrete followed. They allege that several meetings and follow-ups with the Minister and other officials produced neither a written assurance nor a Government Order (GO) or official circular addressing their demands.

A promise cycle that went nowhere

The timeline laid out by the interns shows a pattern of waiting and rescheduling. The representatives first met the Minister at his residence in Sangareddy on October 24. He told them the matter would be examined and that a meeting with his team would be arranged on October 26. That follow-up never delivered a concrete update, they said.

Representatives then met officials on October 26 and 27, before meeting the Minister again at his Hyderabad headquarters on October 29. According to one representative, the Minister said he had discussed the issue with the Director of Medical Education and the Principal Secretary, and promised that a solution would be worked out within two days.

That deadline also passed. At a meeting on Tuesday, the Minister asked for another two to three days to discuss the issue with the Chief Minister, the interns said. For them, that was the final straw.

We had suspended our protest for 10 days, trusting the assurances given by the Minister and allowing the government time to resolve the issue. With no written commitment till date, we have decided to resume our agitation.

The line is short, but it captures the core complaint. The interns did not walk away from negotiations. They paused their protest in good faith, and the government’s answer, in their telling, was more waiting.

The three demands on the table

The interns have laid out three major demands, and each one is specific enough to be checked against a government decision.

First, they want a monthly stipend of ₹29,792 for eligible FMG interns, on a par with eligible IMG interns. Second, they want payment of pending stipend arrears from January 2026, calculated at the applicable parity rate. Third, they want an assurance that they will not face victimisation, punitive action, or arbitrary extensions of their internship for taking part in peaceful protests.

The third demand matters as much as the money. Interns who protest are asking for protection against the very tools that could hold back their careers. An internship that can be stretched at will gives the institution a lever over the trainee, and the interns are asking for that lever to be taken off the table in writing.

The stipend gap at the centre of the fight

The core grievance is disparity. FMG interns are seeking the same monthly stipend that eligible IMG interns receive, and the gap is what turned a stalled negotiation into a renewed agitation. The report does not state what IMG interns currently receive, so the size of the gap cannot be measured from the source material. What is clear is that the interns see the difference as unjustifiable, and they want the state to say so in writing.

The arrears question adds another layer. The demand for payment of stipend arrears from January 2026 at the parity rate means the dispute is not only about the future. It concerns money the interns say they are already owed.

Police action and the protest’s peaceful framing

The protest has not been without confrontation. The representatives recalled that several protesting FMGs were detained by police on October 22 while raising their demands. That detention came in the middle of a dispute that the interns say they were trying to resolve through dialogue.

The interns insist the protest remains peaceful. Despite the detentions, they say they kept seeking a resolution through peaceful protest and talks. Earlier, on October 15, FMGs from various parts of Telangana gathered at Dharna Chowk in Hyderabad to protest the stipend disparity. The protest has now run through multiple phases, with a 10-day pause that ended without a written outcome.

Why this is a Telangana story

This dispute is rooted in Telangana. The interns are training in the state, the protests have been held in Hyderabad and Sangareddy-linked meetings, and the decision-makers they are pleading with, including the Health Minister and the Chief Minister, sit in the state government. Any written order that comes out of this process will apply directly to doctors working in Telangana hospitals as trainees, and it will set the terms for how the state treats FMG interns going forward.

That is why the lack of a Government Order carries weight. Without a GO or official circular, the interns have nothing binding to point to, and each new promise can be revisited or delayed.

What happens next

The next move sits with the government. The Minister has said he needs two to three more days to take the issue to the Chief Minister, a timeline the interns have already seen slip once. The interns, for their part, have made it clear they will not return to protest without a written commitment on all three demands.

The question is whether the state turns verbal assurances into a formal decision. For the interns, a meeting or a promise is no longer enough. They want paper, a monthly stipend figure they can count on, arrears paid, and a guarantee that protest will not cost them their internships. Until that paper exists, the agitation continues, and the interns say they will keep it peaceful.