SHILLONG, April 6: Clamouring for state government to take over the operations of 108 Emergency Service, the Meghalaya EMRI Workers’ Union (MEMRIWU) has demanded of the government to terminate the contract with GVK EMRI.
Only recently, the government had renewed the contract for a period of one year.
“We are firm with our demand that the government should terminate the contract with the GVK EMRI and take over the 108 Emergency Service in the state,” public secretary of the Union, J Pyngrope, told reporters here on Tuesday.
According to him, the Union will soon be meeting Health and Family Welfare Minister, Alexander Laloo Hek, to seek clarification on the government’s move to extend the contract with GVK EMRI.
Pyngrope maintained that it is high time for the government to take over the emergency services.
“We cannot accept claims of the health minister that the state government will not be able to run the emergency services on its own. If the department can run the health centres throughout the state then we do not see a problem in running the ambulance service,” he said.
Stating that GVK EMRI has been running the 108 Emergency Service since 2008, the Union pointed out that the government must have acquired the necessary expertise on how to run the emergency services. “There are many states where the government has run the emergency services on its own,” Pyngrope stated.
Asked whether or not they will accept if the government engages another firm to run the service, he said that as of now, they would want the government to take over the services.
“We will examine if there is such a proposal from the government in the near future,” he said.
Brainstorming on suggestions, he said that the government can explore the possibilities of forming a society to run the 108 services.
Earlier, Health and Family Welfare Minister, AL Hek, had stated that the state government has no plan to take over the ambulance services or to hand it over to any other organisation.
“We will have to extend the contract with the GVK EMRI since we do not want the 108 ambulance services to be affected. We will to continue with the present arrangement till such time when they have floated a new tender to run the service,” Hek had said.