NRHM employees threaten state-level protest on June 7

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, May 25

The employees of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) have threatened to stage a state-level protest in Chandigarh on June 7 if the government fails to pay heed to their long-pending demands.

The NRHM employees claimed to have submitted a memorandum to various government dignitaries in the last few days regarding their demands.

The employees have been demanding the release of their one-month salaries, and had observed a strike in favour of their demands. The employees were demanding regularisation of jobs, the implementation of increment sanctioned to them and were opposing the government’s decision to reduce their salaries.

Earlier, the state government had ordered, through a notification on August 3, 2015, the implementation of six per cent increment from August this year. But the employees went on strike demanding that increment should be given from April 2015. Later, these employees were annoyed after the government reduced their salaries.

Inderjit Singh Rana, state president, NRHM, said, “We will protest on June 7 if the government fails to release the salaries of the employees during the strike period. In a democratic country, everyone has a right to protest and we had staged a protest only after our salaries were reduced and our long-pending demands, including regularisation of jobs, were not heeded to by the government.”

In the month of March and April last year, the NRHM employees had gone on strike continuously regarding their demands. The services of Health Department were adversely affected during the strike including emergency services across the state. However, the state government did not pay their salary during the period of strike.

Under the NRHM, about 9,000 employees including a number of doctors are working in Punjab and were annoyed over the recent decision of the state government to reduce the salaries of the employees. Following the pressure created on the government because of the strike, the state government took the decision on reducing the salaries of employees.