Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 5: As a sequel to his efforts of mitigating issues of employees, Minister for Health & Medical Education, Bali Bhagat today held second round of talks with the representatives of the NHM employees and discussed all their issues and demands.
Principal Secretary Health & Medical Education, Dr. Pawan Kotwal, Divisional Commissioner, Jammu, Dr. Mandeep K. Bhandari, IG Jammu, SD Singh Jamwal, Deputy Commissioner, Jammu, Kumar Rajeev Ranjan, Mission Director, NHM, Dr. Mohan Singh, Additional Secretary, K.S. Chib and representatives of NHM, RNTCP and NACO employees were present in the meeting.
The Minister reiterated his appeal to the agitating employees to resume their work immediately as patient care in health institutions is suffering. He said that Government has already taken sympathetic view of their all outstanding issues, including regularization and moving gradually to address these complex issues.
He said as per the outcome of previous meetings with the NHM employees, the Government had constituted a committee of officers to examine their all issues on merit and the committee, along with other issues also recommended regularization of employees in a phased manner as it was difficult to regularize more than 8000 employees in one go, who are presently working in NHM and other related schemes in Health & Medical Education Department across the State which roughly involves a financial implication upto Rs. 225 crore annually.
To begin with, under first phase, the Health & Medical Department also referred the case of 1020 employees to the Finance Department for its consideration which involved a financial implication of Rs. 27.41 crore annually. This development was also conveyed to the representatives of the employees from time to time.
Taking humanitarian view on their demands, the Government has also initiated some fresh welfare measures for the NHM and similarly situated employees, including extending the benefits of Accidental Insurance Scheme, EPF, paid medical leave for 15 days in an year, maternity leave in favor of the female employees which were not applicable to them earlier.
Those drawing salary upto Rs. 15,000 per month will be entitled for the benefits of EPF and Government will contribute the mandatory employer’s share as well. Besides, the Government has already sanctioned 5% increment to all categories of employees and also proposes to enhance another 1% over and above, said the Minister.
He said, “prolonging strike is unjustified and will not yield any result, but further aggravate the problems of the patients in the Government health institutions”. He urged them to resume their work immediately as their all genuine demands will be addressed in a phased manner with all sympathies.
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