Government ends contract with lab, locals to lose jobs

Ravinder Sood

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Palampur, May 28

Hundreds of youth working as lab assistants, technicians, etc with SRL Limited are set to lose jobs after the state government terminated the last week.

The company had been running the laboratories in 10 districts for the last nine years at subsidised rates for people above poverty line and free of cost for the poor, beneficiaries of the IRDP and Antodaya schemes and pregnant women. Last week, the state government gave the contract to Pune-based Krsnaa Diagnostics.

“We have closed our labs and shifted the infrastructure to other states where we have a network and are vacating the premises to pave the way for the new company. We have transferred our employees to Punjab, Jharkhand, North-East, and other states. However, we have not terminated the services of even a single employee,” he adds. But the locals, who were working with the firm and not keen to go to other states, will lose job.

Hundreds of patients, visiting hospitals for medical tests, are a harassed a lot as there is none to attend to them.

Dr Anita Mahajan, Director of Health Services, said the contract of SRL Limited had been terminated on May 21 and the same day, the new company had taken over. However, the company hasd not yet deputed its men to conduct medical tests.

Dr Vinay Mahajan, Medical Superintendent, Civil Hospital, Palampur, said lower-level officers of Krsnaa Diagnostics held a meeting with him and assured him that they would start the process of collections of samples and provide reports on time.