BENGALURU: Ahead of the state budget to be presented in the first week of March, ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activists) workers’ union, which is affiliated to the All India United Trade Union Centre (AIUTUC), submitted a list of demands to Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Wednesday.
The demands include an increase in honorarium to Rs 12,000. Currently, they earn Rs 4,000 from the state government and variable incentive-based pay from the central government, for completing specific tasks under national health programmes. However, owing to technical issues on the online portal even their completed tasks do not get updated and their incentives never reach them. Therefore, their demands also include fixing the technical glitches in the portal.
The union also requested the central government to clear the pending incentive-based pay and honorarium for the month of July. They said that the Rs 10,000 Covid risk incentive announced for other healthcare workers such as D-group staff was never extended to them for performing their corona duty.The state government had earlier promised a risk incentive of Rs 3,000 for ASHA workers on corona duty, but that did not reach all of them. They demanded that the funds for those be released too.
