Karnataka Asha Social Health Workers Demand Better Wages, To Stay Off Duties Indefinitely from Today

Bengaluru: In what was undoubtedly a show of strength, a sea of pink descended on the streets of Bengaluru as thousands of village-level health workers held a protest in the heart of the city demanding immediate payment of their back-wages of 15 months. They were also demanding doubling of their monthly wages from the current Rs 6,000.

While a part of their salaries from the state government has been paid, the component to be paid by the Centre has been delayed all this while.

The demonstrators, who marched from Majestic in central Bengaluru, brought traffic to a halt for nearly an hour before assembling at the Freedom Park. The Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) wanted the health minister to assure them in writing that their demands will be met, vexed that their earlier petitions had not yielded any results.

Traffic jams aside, the government will have a new problem, and one of far greater magnitude, to deal with from Saturday -- the Karnataka State United Asha Workers' Federation (KSUAWF) has decided to stay off their duties from tomorrow for an indefinite period. This means unless the government responds immediately, the backbone of the social health network at the grassroot level will be crippled.

The Asha workers were also unhappy that incentives and payments due to them had been delayed because of a software problem on the 'AshaSoft' portal, which has repeatedly been affected by glitches.

“This is punishing these workers of their dues because of someone else's mistakes. Why are they being held responsible for a software problem they have no control over?” asked D Nagalakshmi, state KSUAWF secretary.

The demand for higher wages and scrapping of the portal-based payments was among 11 placed by them.

There are over 40,000 Asha workers in Karnataka responsible for nearly 36 different kind of tasks -- from ante-natal and post-natal care of pregnant women to immunisation of children to disbursement of tuberculosis medicines. They are also responsible for such matters of social health like spreading awareness about control of mosquito-borne diseases.

Health Minister Sriramulu, who was in Delhi, said he stands by the welfare of the Asha workers and will work towards getting additional budgetary allocations. His officials also addressed the demonstration, saying four of the demands of the protesters will be immediately fulfilled and other four will be partially addressed. The officials added that the remaining three demands will be taken up soon with the government.

However, most were unhappy with the government response.

“We also have families. If they can't pay well, let them scrap the scheme. We will look for jobs elsewhere,” a worker was heard telling her colleague.

TS Rama, a union leader of the federation, said these workers are tasked with 35 ‘line items’ or duties in their villages or taluks and to carry out 44 kinds of surveys for the government primarily related to health of citizens.

“Services definitely will be affected but we are not the reason, the government is the reason,” said Rama. “They should be answerable for whatever happens in villages.”

Rama said there has been no proper mechanism for the past 15 months to bill our work. “So, they are suffering. They say they will sort out our problems by March 31 but until now there is no clear answer about these dues,” she said. “So, we will stop our work. If the software doesn't work, we have manual records, let them pay by that. But don't deprive us for work already done. What work has been done, let them respect it and give our dues."