Pharmacists protest appointment in new Aam Aadmi Clinics

Our Correspondent

Tarn Taran, January 23

Pharmacists working under the Rural Development and Panchayat Department today staged a dharna to protest their appointment in the new Aam Aadmi Clinics being opened on Republic Day. The protest was staged in front of the District Administrative Complex. The protesting pharmacists burnt the effigy of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and presented a charter of demands to the Deputy Commissioner.

The pharmacists, under the banner of Rural Health Pharmacists Association, were on the agitation path demanding regularisation of services with full pay-scale besides fulfilment of other demands. State president of the union Kamaljit Singh Chauhan and district president Gurdeep Singh Kaler were among those who addressed the gathering.

The leaders of the association said that they had been working on contractual basis since 2006 on meagre salary. They said the state government was appointing them in the new Aam Aadmi Clinics from January 25 without consent and they were still ready to perform their duty at their new place but their demand to regularise services with full pay-scale should be met without delay. They alleged that successive state governments had done nothing except to sit on their demands and warned of intensifying their agitation in case their demands were not met.