SHILLONG, July 5: National Health Mission (NHM), Meghalaya, Mission Director, Ram Kumar on Tuesday said the governing body of the State Health Society has completed the rationalisation of remuneration of all service delivery staff under NHM, Meghalaya.
The service delivery staff had on Tuesday staged a peaceful protest against the “irrational rationalisation” of their salaries by the office of the Mission Director, Meghalaya.
Kumar said previously under NHM, the staff of the same cadre/designation with similar qualifications and years of service were drawing different amounts of remuneration due to the merger and dissolution of various vertical programme societies in the health sector since 2016.
“Under rationalisation, the NHM aims at correcting the disparities by categorising the staff under 12 categories with respective basic pay. The staff have been categorised according to the minimum qualification required for the respective posts and term of reference thereof,” Kumar said. He also stated that the staff under each category will receive 5% yearly increment against the years of service under the NHM.
He said two drafts were notified on April 21 and May 31 for feedback from all the staff concerned and based on the feedback provided by the various cadres under service delivery, consideration was made and incorporated to the extent possible in the final notification.
“On presenting the final draft, considering the permitted Resource Envelope approved by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, the matter was taken up with the governing body on June 23 and 27 for review and final approval. Subsequently, after a threadbare discussion, the governing body provided necessary approval to ensure equality in remuneration of the staff of the same cadre/designation against their respective years of service,” Kumar said.
Out of the 2,118 staff under service delivery, around 96% will be receiving an increase in their current pay whereas arrears shall be paid to all the eligible personnel in installments as per the availability of funds.
Kumar said essential services cannot be stopped under any circumstances and failure to perform essential duties to the public at large will lead to fixing responsibilities individually on those concerned.
