OUR CORRESPONDENT
DONGKAMUKAM: Over twenty thousand employees of the National Health Mission (NHM), Assam, have intensified their long-pending demand for regularization and financial security, staging a three-day statewide sit-in protest across all districts from November 3 to 5.
In West Karbi Anglong, hundreds of NHM workers gathered at the Hamren District Hospital on November 4, expressing their deep frustration over nearly two decades of unfulfilled assurances from the government. During the demonstration, the employees also submitted a memorandum to the District Commissioner outlining their charter of demands.
The protestors highlighted a nine-point demand charter, urging the state government to ensure parity with regular state employees. Their key demands include implementation of a pay scale system for all NHM employees, ensuring ‘equal pay for equal work’ in line with the Supreme Court judgment (Verdict No. 213 of 2013), enforcement of the Assam Gazette Notification, 2021, to extend gratuity benefits to NHM staff, provision of Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) and inclusion under the Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS/NPS), financial assistance for families of deceased employees, either through full salary till the deceased’s retirement age or employment for a family member, uniform leave policy, including two years of child care leave, similar to that enjoyed by regular government employees, comprehensive medical coverage under the MMLSAY scheme and continued reimbursement benefits until inclusion, special recruitment drives to regularize long-serving NHM employees within the State Health Department, and policy reforms to provide age relaxation and recruitment priority for NHM workers in future health sector appointments. The NHM Employees’ Union stated that the agitation would continue until the government took concrete steps to address their grievances and ensured justice for all contractual health workers across Assam.
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