NHM employees refuse to budge to govt threats

Srinagar, Feb 08: National Health Mission (NHM) employees on Friday refused to call off their strike despite government warning them of terminating their services.

The NHM employees have been on strike from the past 26 days to get their demands fulfilled. They have been demanding for equal wages for equal work and regularization of their services. The government has warned them of action if they don’t resume their duties. Refusing to budge from their stand, the employees on Friday took to the streets for redress of their demands. They took out a protest rally from Srinagar’s Press Colony to press for their demands.

Rouf Ahmad, spokesperson of NHM said, “We held a protest for 34 days last year, following which government constituted a committee of four members and then the health minister, Bali Bhagat told us that they have forwarded the regularization file to the finance department for the consideration, but to no avail.”

He claimed that authorities were pressurizing them to call off their strike and issuing termination notices.

“We will not succumb to the pressure tactics till our demands are not met,” he added.

Dr. Mudasir Nabi, who was part of the protest, told The Kashmir Monitor, “We signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bali Bhagat and he assured that more than 1000 employees will be regularized in the first phase and the rest will be absorbed in the second phase. The MoU that was drafted had certain conditions regarding the job security of employees, maternity leave, social security benefits.”

He said, “We are extending our strike and we won’t report to our duties because we were assured that our demands will be fulfilled. We are meant to serve mankind. We don’t want our patients to suffer and we will work voluntarily whenever the administration will be in need.”