ASHA workers block road

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, December 30

Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) today staged a protest at Hanuman Chowk and also blocked the road for some time as part of their protest here today.

Leaders of the workers’ union said if their demands were not accepted by the government, it would face the consequences in the coming Assembly elections.

Elaborating on their demands, the ASHA workers said their demands include regular incentives, government insurance, regularisation of their jobs, minimum monthly wages and health benefits like other government employees.

They also demanded that those workers who were interested in pursuing the Auxiliary Nurse Midwife course should be allowed to do so free of cost.

Arguing that ASHA workers do a lot of work of the Health Department in villages and other rural areas, union leaders Neetu Bala, Suhwinder Kaur, Narinder Kaur, Sharanjit Kaur and others said they must immediately be brought under the state Health Department and excluded from the village health and sanitation societies.

They also demanded that to ease the financial burden on ASHA workers, they should be given uniform and washing allowance.

Raising slogans against the state government and the state Health Department, the ASHA workers threatened to intensify their stir in case their demands were not heeded.