Mizoram health workers on indefinite strike over salary, regularisation: Report

Mizoram is facing a severe manpower crunch amid rising Covid-19 cases due to an indefinite strike organised by various healthcare workers under the National Health Mission (NHM), several media reports said on Thursday.

The state government termed the strike ‘unfortunate’ and said it would take action against the agitated staffers for not abiding by the rules and contract.

Over 2,000 contractual employees of NHM under the aegis of National Health Mission Employees Union of Mizoram (NEUM) are currently on strike crippling health facilities across the state at a time when Covid cases are soaring by each passing day.

The NHM staff are on mass leave since Wednesday demanding several benefits, including regularisation, regular pay, medical reimbursement and transfer allowance.

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This is the second such strike in the last one year as the workers had gone on a mass casual leave at the same time in 2021.

The strike in July last year, however, was called off after three days following assurance from the state government to constitute a study group to assess and look into the problems of the employees.

Although this year’s mass casual leave was initially scheduled to be called off on Wednesday, it was decided to continue indefinitely as the government failed to meet their demands, NEUM president Malsawmtluanga Hauhnar said.

He said this decision was taken after meeting with top state officials on Tuesday remained inconclusive.

He said the healthcare workers were paid irregularly for the past ten years due to unknown reasons especially when the state stopped receiving direct central funding.

The salaries of the employees are now met from 90% of funds from the Centre and 10% share from the state government.

He said the state government did not honour the Supreme Court ruling that employees under the Central Sponsored Scheme be paid regularly.

Hauhnar said that the government did nothing to meet their demands and the study group’s report was neither tabled at the cabinet meeting for implementation even after a year.

Meanwhile, the state government said that it would take necessary action against the agitated workers for not obeying the rules and not respecting the contract agreement they signed.

Talking to reporters, health department principal secretary Esther Lalruatkimi said the NHM staffers are recruited on a yearly basis as per the contract and their employment is renewed depending on their performance.

She said that there is no provision as such to regularise the workers.

However, the government has constituted a study group to assess the conditions of those contractual employees under the Central Sponsored Scheme (CSS), Central Sector Scheme and Externally Allied Programme or Projects and find the possibility to give better benefit to them, she said.

The official said that the government has already released salaries till May to respective bank accounts of the agitated health workers and salaries for June is under process.

Terming the incident unfortunate, Lalruatkimi said it is not right for a strike to be organised by only a certain group of CSS employees at a time when the state is seeing an uptick in Covid cases.

State personnel and administrative reforms department secretary, Lalramnghaka, who accompanied Lalruatkimi at the news conference, said that they have requested the agitated healthcare workers to understand the situation and complexities as regularisation and providing other benefit is a long process that cannot be done in haste.

He said that the study group was basically constituted to frame a policy by examining legal validity and pros and cons to regularise the contractual employees under the state government.

However, framing a policy is a long process as certain issues, including financial impact, existing recruitment rules, constitutional violation and litigation, have to be assessed and taken into account in the process.

He said that the government could not consider and give preference to the NHM staff alone as there are thousands of contractual employees under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme.

The state government on Wednesday re-appealed the agitated employees to resume their duties and also directed all concerned controlling authorities to ensure that the employees come back to their working place.

On July 8, the government had also banned strikes by healthcare workers under the Mizoram Essential Service Maintenance Act, 1990.

Despite the government appeal, the employees remain adamant.

Meanwhile, opposition Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) legislature party leader Lalduhoma blamed the state government for allegedly intimidating the employees to resume their duties.

He said that the government should take proactive measures in finding solutions to the problems of the agitated employees.