A three-week medicos' strike in Tamil Nadu may not have moved the state government to accept their demands, but it is already threatening to snowball into a bigger crisis.

On Wednesday, the Tamil Nadu Government Doctors' Association will stop work to express solidarity with the striking medicos.

TNGDA president Dr Prakasam said the association is willing to open negotiations with the government at any time.

The striking medicos held a demonstration in front of the dean's office in Kilpauk Medical College Hospital in Chennai on Tuesday.

In Tiruchirappalli, the striking students took out a cycle rally to the collectorate.

The state government has decided to hire 100 doctors in each district to face Tuesday's token strike by government doctors and their indefinite strike from May 21.

The medicos, among other things, are demanding that the government do something about the mushrooming private medical and dental colleges in the state.

While the state government has told the striking medicos' that the sanction for medical/dental colleges comes from Delhi, the students want restoration of a rule that no medical or dental college would be sanctioned within a 100-km radius of an existing one.