Over a thousand contract workers under the National Health Mission (NHM) are likely to continue their strike on Monday over pay hikes and service conditions, rejecting a salary hike of up to 15% by the Karnataka government to a section of the employees who have been on an indefinite protest for the last 20 days.
The NHM employees said they would not get back to work as they are as unhappy with the government’s response. In an order issued on Saturday, the state government has offered to raise the salary only for in-source /contractual employees taken under the NHM, and will not apply to outsourced employees.

According to the order, the one-time hike of 15% is for those with a monthly basic remuneration of less than ₹20,000 at the time of joining and for medical officers with more than five years of continuous service. For NHM contractual specialists, the hike will be 5% for those with three to five years of service, 10% for those with 5-10 years of service, and 15% for those with over ten years of service, the order said.

However, the protesting employees have rejected the state government’s proposal and are demanding regularisation of their services. Karnataka State Health and Medical Education Department Contractual and Outsource Employees Association president Vishwaradhya H Y said that they would continue their indefinite strike on Monday, and the protest is likely to disrupt services in government-run hospitals and healthcare centres.

As per the recommendations of the PN Srinivasachari Committee report, the government ordered a hike in wages with effect from April 1. The 15% hike was one of the demands of the one of demands of the association when it protested in February. However, the association is unhappy over the exclusion of many members.

“20–30% of NHM employees will not receive the raise since contract employees who don’t fall into these categories have been left out, and so are outsourced employees,” Vishwaradhya said, adding that they also want arrears from 2021 when the Srinivasachari report was out.The indefinite protest has already affected the delivery of several national health programmes in the state, including Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram, the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme, routine immunisation, and tobacco control, among others.

Karnataka health minister Dr K Sudhakar said that the government is striving for health employees and has fulfilled the long-pending raise in salary with the 15% salary hike. Earlier, Sudhakar had assured the agitating employees of holding discussions regarding their demands at the government level.