TURA, March 16: Service delivery staff of the National Health Mission (NHM) from the state under the aegis of the NHM Employees Association of Meghalaya (NEAM) on Wednesday warned of staging a statewide agitation over the delay by the concerned authorities in rationalizing their salaries.
Informing of the difficulties faced by the staff, the association said that the salary rationalization of the service delivery staff which was supposed to be under effect from September 2021 as was done for the programme management staff of NHM, was still pending. “When the service delivery staff met Mission Director, Ram Kumar in November last year, he gave a verbal assurance that it will be done by January 2022. When we met him again in February 2022, he again assured verbally to get it done by March or April. We then met Health Minister, James PK Sangma and received a written notification on February 27 stating that the salary rationalization will only be done by the end of May. Along with the notification, it was informed that the previous arrears and yearly 5% increment have been disbursed which is totally false. The NHM employees have not received any arrears or increment since 2019,” the association revealed.
According to the association, an online meeting was held between the staff and the Mission Director on March 15 where they were assured that salary rationalization would be completed by July 2022. The association however claimed that when they raised the question on whether arrears would be given or not with effect from September 2021, the reply was negative.
“This is unacceptable. We strongly condemn the actions of the Mission Director who has been delaying the salary rationalization process and giving us false hope time and again despite being given ample time. We are bound to stage an unprecedented statewide agitation till our demands are met,” the association said.