THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As many as 6,000 employees of the National Health Mission (NHM) in the state have been left in the lurch as they have not been paid their salaries for the past two months. The implementation of major programmes by the NHM have hit a roadblock with an inordinate delay in releasing Central funds, which will in turn affect lakhs of beneficiaries across the state. It has been pointed out that a single NHM project - Non-communicable Disease - alone benefits close to 30 lakh individuals.
The situation is likely to worsen in the coming days if Central funds are not released on time. It is alleged that the first quarter of fund allocation for 2015-16 for NHM programmes in the state has not been released till now because of the state government’s delay in contributing its share.
Stating that it is not the first time that such a situation has occurred, NHM Employees Forum state secretary Dileep Kumar said on Wednesday: “The employees are all agitated over the delay in getting salary. It was the time of school reopening but the employees had not got the salary and one can just imagine the situation. The employees are doubtful when they would get the salary.”
Noting that there was salary shortage, NHM State Mission Director in-charge Dr S Jayashankar said that he had released `11 crore on Wednesday for disbursing the salary. “As a stop-gap arrangement, we have pooled in money from other heads to fill the gap,’’ he said. However, he did not comment on the crisis that was imminent in the coming months and the roadblocks to various programmes if fund was delayed. Kumar also said that the situation was worse with respect to the employees under the Non-communicable Disease programme of the NHM. “They have not received payment for the past three months,” he said.
It is also said that the salary delay has been caused after the Central Government started to route all funds of the centrally-sponsored scheme through state treasuries.
