Srinagar: Employees of the National Health Mission (NHM), RNTCP, NACO and other schemes of health services Saturday protested here against the “callous approach” of government towards health sector by not regularizing and framing policy for regularization of almost ten thousand employees.
The protesting doctors, paramedical staff, and technicians of the health department working on contractual basis under NHM demanded that they be included in the recent list of 60, 000 employees who are to be regularized.
“We have approached the government and all concerned departments/agencies for the last more than 6 years for framing a policy of regularization of our employees but unfortunately till date none of our genuine demands have been conceded. We are serving the health sector for more than a decade now,” chief spokesperson Joint Employees Coordination Committee Abdul Rauoof told INS.
Rouf said the government had constituted a committee on the issue as well and it had to submit its report within two months.
“The committee was constituted in March this year and had to submit its report within two months, however, nine months have passed and official callousness and lackadaisical approach is affecting the employees,” he said.
JECC chief spokesperson confided that two days back, health minister Bali Baghat had told them that he has forwarded their file to finance ministry, however, “no communication of any nature from the finance department has come to the protesting employees”.
“We have decided to extend the strike till Monday and if government does not pay heed to our pleas, we will continue protests till our demands are met,” he said.
“Joint Employees Coordination Committee of NHM, RNTCP, NACO and other schemes have decided that till the Government does not come out with a road-map or written proposal of our regularization of services, we will not call off our strike,” Rouf said.
Protesting employees termed it unfortunate that NHM employees have been forced to take this “extreme step”. They blamed the inordinate delay, callous attitude, insensitivity and non serious behaviour of the government in framing the policy of regularization of all NHM employees viz doctors, paramedical, and management personnel.
Pertinently, Jammu and Kashmir government on Wednesday regularized 60,000 daily wagers and casual labourers but NHM employees did not figure in the said list, the protesters said.
