The government will take “strong steps” against junior doctors who disrupt medical services despite efforts to increase their stipend, said state health minister Surjya Kanta Mishra on Monday.

“A three-member committee will make recommendations for increasing the stipend of junior doctors. Even after this, if anybody tries to disrupt work at hospitals, the state government will intervene,” Mishra said at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

He and finance minister Asim Dasgupta addressed the state conference of the Junior Doctors Council, a union of junior doctors affiliated to the SFI.

Nearly 1,000 junior doctors of three state-run hospitals — SSKM, Medical College and Hospital and Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital —stopped work for three days earlier this month demanding a hike in stipend.

The health department committee that was later set up to revise the stipend structure will submit its report by next Monday, according to Mishra.

The report, when it is forwarded to the finance department, will be “cleared in 12 hours”, said Dasgupta.

A junior doctor who took part in the protest said: “We will not agitate any more if the hike is substantial.” The finance minister also announced an increase in the annual grant to hospitals for buying books, periodicals and study material for medical students. “The junior doctors demanded that the grant be increased from Rs 1 lakh per year to Rs 10 lakh and we agreed,” he said.