A JDA spokesman said a decision in the context was taken at an all-member meeting at the hospital on Sunday evening. The doctors, whose stir over a hike in stipend, entered the 28th day today, have reiterated that they would fight till the end.

The spokesman said they would picket outside the 14 OPDs around 7 am and only allow the other six emergency OPDs -- medicines, surgery, gynaecology, paediatrics, orthopaedics and ENT -- to function. Seniors, who have been attending these 14 OPDs, will be prevented from attending to patients, to press the authorities to accept their demand.

Meanwhile, the doctors have started distributing handbills to make the common people aware of the reasons of their on-going strike, even as their parallel OPD near the hospital cycle stand and free medicine bank continued. The spokesman said association members would also call on local leaders on Monday to seek their support.

Meanwhile in Surat, 14 junior doctors attached to the New Civil Hospital in Surat will begin fast-unto-death from Monday, further intensifying their ongoing agitation to press for a hike in stipend. Their counterparts in Vadodara and Jamnagar civil hospitals are also agitating on the issue.

Junior Doctors' Association said the state government was not paying any attention to their genuine demands. Though the strike is nearing one month, the government is yet to fulfil its promise of immediate increase in the stipend by 56 per cent and revising it later after taking into account the stipend paid in other states.

The agitation had begun with a token strike on August 19 in all the three colleges. When that did not help, the doctors struck work on September 4 and followed it with rallies and token fasts.

The association claimed the stipend given to junior doctors was lesser than the salary of sweepers working in the same premises. Their counterparts in some other states get three times more stipend, the association claimed in a statement.

The agitating doctors alleged that Health Minister Ashok Bhatt was not interested in finding a solution to the nearly month-old strike and was daring them to approach the chief minister's office. They claimed Bhatt has taken offence to the fact that doctors approached the chief minister's office first and not him.

While the chief minister's office had given them assurance on 56 per cent hike in stipend, the health minister was cut up with doctors' associations for bypassing him. He reportedly repeated the same reservations when a delegation of agitating doctors called on him in Gandhinagar early this week.

The political differences between the chief minister and the health minister were coming in the way of a solution to the strike that has crippled three big hospitals in the state, JDA president Dr Pritu Dhalaria said.

Dhalaria said another batch of 30 doctors will go on token strike along with the 14 doctors.