Employees of the Puducherry State Health Mission (PSHM) have urged the government to drop direct recruitment of staff in the Health Department and to fill up the posts by absorbing the employees serving on contract basis since the launch of the mission in 2001.
C H Balamohanan, president of Confederation of Puducherry Government Employees Association to which the State Health Mission employees union is affiliated, said around 5,000 employees were serving the PSHM on contract basis for more than 8 years in various health centres. The staff include doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lab technicians, auxiliary nurse and midwife and counsellors who are serving on contract basis side by side with regular employees. They have been doing equal work, but unfortunately they are not being absorbed into regular posts.
Though the government had moved a proposal for absorption of 25 per cent of the contract staff, it is yet to fructify. In these circumstances, the government had notified the filling up of 50 vacancies of staff nurses through direct recruitment. It should be stopped immediately, Balamohanan said.
The government should push the proposal for absorption of contract staff and wait for government of India’s concurrence.
Balamohanan regretted that even the annual increments had been stopped. Till 2009, the employees were paid 20 per cent annual increment. From 2010 it was slashed to 10 per cent but in the current year it has been stopped, he said.
The association would conduct a one-day agitation seeking absorption of contract employees in regular posts and withdrawal of notification for recruitment of staff nurses, he said.