Haryana: Health Dept staff to protest today against geo-fencing attendance

In protest against location-based geo-fencing attendance, Health Department employees and doctors will stop work for one hour on Monday and will protest by organising gate meetings at Civil Surgeon offices across the state. Sharmila, state president, Multi-Purpose Health Workers’ Association, said this after a virtual meeting of the state committee to review the preparedness of the ‘Kaam Chhodo Andolan’.

She said that on the call of the Health Department officers-employees coordination committee, all Health Department employees and officers are coming together on a single platform to protest against the location-based attendance system which “violates privacy and secrecy”.

Sharmila said that it is an app-based mobile application that has to be installed on personal devices. “The employees’ location would be tracked through it, breaching the privacy of employees. Also, the government has not given any instrument to the employees. How can we install it on personal devices? The employees already are using the biometric attendance system,” she said.

Duties have been assigned to all the office-bearers for the state-wide protest on Monday, the state president added.

Sahdev Arya Sangwan, general secretary, said that appeals have been made in the past two months to the Health Minister and senior officials through memorandum and in-person meetings to stop geo-fencing attendance, but to no avail.

The association warned that if the orders of location-based geo-fencing attendance are not withdrawn, the movement would be intensified. All categories of officers and employees associations including Haryana Civil Medical Services (HCMS) Association, Dental Surgeons Association, Lab Technician Association, Nursing Officers Association, Ministerial Staff Association, NHM Employees Association, Haryana Kaushal Rozgar Nigam (HKRN) Employees Association, Health Supervisor Association, Pharmacy Association and Multi-Purpose Health Workers (MPHW) Association will give their 100 per cent participation, the association said.