Principal Correspondent
KOHIMA, AUGUST 27
SEVEN days after the NRHM employees launched their agitation by way of abstaining from health services, the State government through the Finance department will be releasing the pending salaries of the State NRHM employees by tomorrow.
Official sources in State Finance department today said Chief Minister TR Zeliang has approved the file (NRHM employees salary) submitted by the Planning department yesterday.
The official source said despite having received the funds from the Centre, the matter was delayed because the failure of the Planning department in timely procession of the files, specially the salary component of the NRHM employees in the State.
The official said NRHM being a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS), the funds used to directly go to the department earlier. But now with the change of guard at the Centre, all CSS or flagship programmes of the Central government are being routed through the State government and there are some procedures to be followed in releasing the funds to the department, he added.
The official also clarified that the delay is not totally from the Finance department but if the department concerned and Planning department delay the procedures, it will ultimately delay the release of funds.
Nevertheless, the official asserted that the files submitted yesterday have already been approved by the Chief Minister and the salary component of NRHM employees amounting to more than Rs 10 crore would be released tomorrow by Finance department.
Meanwhile, the aggrieved NRHM employees whose agitation entered the seventh day today are scheduled to meet the Minister for Health & Family Welfare Thursday morning at his official residence in Kohima over the imbroglio.
ACAUT in solidarity with aggrieved employees
ACAUT Nagaland said it is very disheartening that the NRHM employees have been deprived of five months’ salary till date despite their being the work horse of the State Health department.
Instead of redressing the problem, the department of H&FW resorted to intimidation to dismiss the agitating employees if they resorted to strike, which is autocratic and unbecoming of a democratic state, the ACAUT in a release issued by its media cell said today.
Noting that the NHRM employees, whether doctors, nurses or clerical staff, are all young people in the forefront working tirelessly in both rural and urban areas, the ACAUT said as far as their contribution to healthcare services is concerned, their commitment is no less than their regular counterparts, if not more. “Yet the step-motherly treatment meted out NHRM employees is staggering. It is not their fault that the state H&FW department has not fulfilled their required contribution of 10% for which the Central government has not released 90% of the funds- this being the excuse of the Directorate and for which reason the salaries of the employees have not been paid till now,” it stated.
If the patients are suffering now, especially the rural folks, due to non-availability of doctors and nurses, it is entirely the fault of the government since no one can give free service for months at a stretch, the ACAUT said.
It further maintained that a contract was surely signed whereby the State government agreed to pay salary and remunerations for services rendered by these professionals and it cannot renege on this agreement. Therefore, the ACAUT said the threat and harassments meted out to its own employees by the Directorate is not acceptable.
“The Directorate would also do well to clarify if NHRM employees posted in the Directorate at Kohima are getting their salaries? If so, then it is nothing but cheap tactics of the Directorate bosses to play one section of employees against another for obvious reasons,” it stated.
The ACAUT further said nothing can be more dishonourable than the certain employees who in connivance with the department are selling out on their comrades.
It urged the Chief Minister to intervene in the matter so that health care services in the State are not affected nor the employees victimized further.
