BENGALURU: Nearly 30,000 National Health Mission (NHM) contractual employees, including nurses, lab technicians and health inspectors, at government hospitals in Karnataka are working without salary since October 2025. These employees are now struggling to meet their basic needs, including rent, petrol charges, water bill and groceries.
Rachanna Gowda, a lab technician at a blood donation unit in one of the government hospitals in Yadgir district, said, “Salary is delayed every month. We are not paid monthly but quarterly and that too after a lot of requests to the officials of the health department. The last salary we received was in September 2025. I am supposed to get a total of Rs 55,000 for three months. I have borrowed from my friends which has to repaid as soon as I get salary.”
He added, “When we approach officials about the delayed salary, they give different reasons. While one person says delay in the receiving of funds from the Centre, other official complains of technical issues in the SPARSH portal that updates the tasks performed every day by each employee.”
Harsh Gupta, principal secretary to the health department, said, “We are not aware of the issue of delay in salary. But I agree and know that payment of salary was delayed twice in 2025. In the beginning of the financial year 2025, there was no opening balance and the central government had delayed the release of funds. Another time, salaries were delayed was when the SPARSH portal was launched.”
Currently, contractual employees are paid their salary on a 60:40 basis in which 60% is paid by the Centre and 40% by the state government. For instance, if the salary of an employee is Rs 20,000 of which Rs 12,000 is paid by the Centre and Rs 8,000 by the state.
Another health inspector working at the Urban Primary Health Centre (UPHC) in Bengaluru North, said, “There are 1,500 health inspectors in Karnataka and each health inspector is assigned one ward comprising 88,000 to 95,000 population.
There is a need for additional 1,500 inspectors to be appointed. However, the government hasn’t made any recruitment for many years. There is a shortage of over 30,000 staff in various capacities in the health department.
Most of the health inspectors were recruited on a contractual basis when disease like dengue, malaria and chikungunya were on the rise. On most days, we end up doing tasks assigned to the employees in the health department who are recruited permanently.”