SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad Oct 26: Agitating Jharkhand Health Employees Welfare Association (JHEWA) has flayed health minister Banna Gupta and resolved to continue its boycott stir till all the demands, including withdrawal of dismissal order against Jwala Prasad of Ranchi, are implemented.
In the wake of the health minister’s statement on Tuesday evening, the JHEWA, the frontal organization of contractual employees of the National Health Mission of Jharkhand criticised the health minister for his coercive statement on agitation and unanimously decided to continue the stir.
“ It is unfortunate on the part of the health minister, who is also the guardian of health employees, that rather than saving the contractual staff and officials from the exploitation of bureaucrats, he is threatening to appoint fresh employees in our place if the stir continues. So today in the evening we held an emergent meeting and resolved to intensify the agitation further,” said Sanjay Kumar, secretary of JHEWA after the meeting.
Earlier in the day health minister Banna Gupta had said that health services of the state can’t be held up over the dismissal of a person. He said the government has an alternative programme for streamlining health services and the fresh appointments would be made in place of agitating employees if they do not return to work.
As per official sources, 50 health programmes have been paralyzed in the state following work boycott agitation of contractual employees which entered the 16th day on Tuesday.
Protesting against the dismissal of State NHM programme officer Jwala Prasad, contractual NHM employees of the state have been on work boycott agitation since October 11. Contractual employees especially at Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Dhanbad have been staging dharna at the respective civil surgeon office besides boycotting their work.
