SHILLONG, July 22: The state government will rope in a new partner to run the 108 ambulance services in the state by September this year. The staff are however not happy and have decided to continue with their agitation.
The employees said they were unhappy with the outcome of the meeting with Principal Secretary of Health Sampath Kumar and decided to take a call on suspending their agitation only after meeting Health Minister James PK Sangma.
EMRI Union adviser Roypar Kharraswai said, “We want the government not to privatise this service again for better delivery of services to the people of the state.”
Meanwhile, officials said over 200 citizens have failed to avail the GVK Emergency 108 services since the strike began on July 18.
The GVK Emergency Management and Research Institute (GVK-EMRI) employees had given a deadline of 72 hours to the state government to terminate the contract with the company which is operating the 108 emergency services in Meghalaya. They had also issued a threat to cease work if their demand was not fulfilled.
Earlier on Friday, Mission Director of National Health Mission Ramkumar S said the agreement with GVK EMRI 108 services has expired and the agency has been in the news due to frequent protests by the employees over issues of salary and working conditions.
The contract with GVK EMRI ended on March 31, 2021, following which a one-year extension was given to the company. At the end of the tenure on March 31, 2022, the state government gave yet another extension which ended on June 30.
Ramkumar said the state government held three rounds of meeting with the GVK EMRI employees. “We communicated to the employees that the regularisation of their services cannot be done because of the orders of the Supreme Court. We are optimistic the union members would resume their services soon,” he said.
Ramkumar said the union members will be involved whenever the state government engages a new partner so that their human resources-related issues are taken care of and salaries paid regularly.
Stating that the government does not want the services to be affected even for an hour as each life matters, he said a written assurance has been given to the employees that the process for tendering and inviting new agencies will be initiated within 15 days.
The government will have to follow certain guidelines while inviting a partner to run the services as it will be a national tender.
