Indian doctors
Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences based in India's Bihar asks new employees to declare their virginity status before joining the institute - Representational image REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

If you are an employee joining the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS), a government medical college situated in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, then you have to declare your virginity status.

A form circulated by IGIMS made headlines after it asked some distasteful questions to its new employees. The declaration section at the bottom of a marital declaration form also wants to know whether the employee is a bachelor, widower or married with one wife.

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Otherwise it asks new joiners to fill other details like: "I am married and have only one wife living/married to a person who has no other wife living" else he or she "[is] married and have more than one wife/married to a person who has another wife living", the Hindu reported.

This is not the first time IGIMS, which is one of the biggest healthcare institutions of Bihar, has come into the light for notorious reasons. Recently, it made headlines for not providing a stretcher to the parents of a dead child up to an ambulance.

Meanwhile, on Thursday (3 August) Bihar's health minister came out in support of the medical college, saying there was nothing objectionable in the declaration form as it meant "unmarried girls".

Mangal Pandey said the term "virgin" meant "unmarried girl or maiden".

"I don't think these words are objectionable. But still, this issue is being raised. I had a word with the officials of the IGIMS. They said this is the format of AIIMS and since 1983; it is being used in every organisation of the country," he told news agency ANI.

Manish Mandal, Medical Superintendent at IGIMS, has also defended the form saying that the form is according to prescribed rules.

"Virgin doesn't have anything to do with virginity but marital status. If a person joins in and then dies who would be claimant? Rules are made by the government and the Constitution. If they change the word, we will change it too," Mandal said.

He, however, accepted that the word "virgin" could have been avoided.

Mandal added that under the Central Services Rules if a person dies while serving the institute, the deceased one's "boyfriend or girlfriend who can turn up with a claim to get the job on compensatory grounds''.