SHILLONG: The stand-off between the management and employees of the GVK EMRI 108 services finally ended on Friday after both the parties resolved to sink their differences and agreed to restart the emergency services at the earliest.
The month-long deadlock between the management and the employees was broken after the Health Minister, AL Hek, convened a meeting on Friday.
Hek told reporters that there is no more problem as both the parties have agreed to resume the duties and the management will decide as to when they would resume their services.
State Head of GVK EMRI, Deepankar Choudhury said that all the issues brought up by the employees were addressed and resolved and the ambulances will start its operations in a phase wise manner as many have been grounded for months and the repair work was on.
Talking about enhancing salaries, Choudhury said that an agreement has been arrived upon regarding basic hike of ten percent and an overall increment of ten percent.
He also informed that resuming the services would be in a phase wise manner after checking the operational aspects of the ambulances and the medicines.
President of Meghalaya EMRI Workers’ Union, Roypar Kharraswai, said that from the eight demands, they are satisfied with most except their demand for 100 per cent increase in salary to which the management agreed at basic hike of ten per cent and an overall increment of ten per cent.
He, however, said that the protest has been going on for a long time and the people are suffering and hence they resolved their differences.
He also informed that they are looking to start the emergency services at the earliest.
The employees of the GVK EMRI 108 ambulance service have been raising their demands and issues like enhanced salary package, shortage of manpower, admission for leave, rampant transfer and unusable condition of ambulances with the management and later, the union hit the streets and also staged hunger strike to put their views across demanding the state government to take over the services.
