CHENNAI: Over 1,000 contract employees of the Chennai Greater Corporation’s Urban Primary Health Centres (UPHCs) staged a protest outside the Ripon Building on Thursday, demanding that the state government pay their full salaries along with the increment promised for the month of May. The protesters included staff nurses, doctors, lab technicians, medical officers and pharmacists recruited under the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM).
Speaking to TNIE, a nurse said many employees received salaries ranging between Rs 2,000 and Rs 7,000, although their actual monthly salaries are between Rs 13,000 and Rs 19,000.
“Our salaries were cut based on biometric attendance recorded through the GCC’s app. We were informed that the app data would be considered only from June, but it has been taken into account from May itself without our knowledge,” the nurse said.
Highlighting technical glitches in the attendance app, they said that even marking attendance a minute after the scheduled in-time of 8.15 am is recorded as late attendance. If an employee is marked late on three occasions, it is treated as one day of casual leave, and once the monthly casual leave quota is exhausted, subsequent late attendance results in loss of pay.
“We are deeply aggrieved as 10 days have passed in the month and we have several additional financial commitments, including school fees for our children and EMI payments,” the nurse added.
In a video circulating online, another nurse lamented that salaries are usually delayed by 10 to 15 days every month and appealed to Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay to fix a specific date for salary disbursal.
The protesters said that corporation commissioner G S Sameeran assured them that salary-related issues would be resolved within three to five days.