SHILLONG: The Meghalaya ASHA Workers’ Union has given one-week time to the state government and has warned of boycotting their services if the latter fails to meet their ultimatum.
Despite the ASHA workers being frontline workers, rendering services amid the peril of COVID-19, they have not received the pending dues since 2012.
In a statement on Tuesday, the union urged Health Minister AL Hek to release pending dues, entitlements, benefits, incentives and PPE to the ASHA workers.
“ASHA are diligently performing duty for attending of all type of health needs, especially for pregnant women, children as well as other duties as instructed by the authority. Moreover, at this juncture, the government has assigned additional duty to us amid the pandemic, i.e., daily house visit/survey, daily reporting, weekly reporting. It is a pressure and burden upon us. Unfortunately, despite our hard work and dedication, the government pays no heed to our grievances. Our pending dues/entitlements/benefits/incentives have not been released since 2012,” the letter to the health minister read.
“Monthly honorarium of Rs 2,000, as fixed by the central government, is not provided. Instead, we are receiving an irregular payment of Rs 800, Rs 1,000, Rs 1,200, Rs 1,400, Rs 1,600 that varies from one district to another, one CHC to another and one PHC to another, which is causing a great financial hardship and mental agony to all of us,” the union lamented.
Bewailing that the state government is well aware of ASHA workers and their families being subjected to greater risk amid the pandemic, the union said, “Our rights and justice should not be neglected”. “If the government cannot release our pending dues and also cannot provide adequate PPE to ASHA workers, who are in the orange zone, within one week from today (Monday), we will have no other option but to boycott our duty,” the union said.
