ASHA pay glitch? Workers say July unpaid
Union says July honorariums were ‘disbursed’ on August 3 but many ASHA workers report no credit. Demands for Rs 18,000 fixed salary and benefits are back on the table. The Congress-run state hasn’t explained the delay.
ASHA workers say their July honorariums have not reached many bank accounts.
More than 28,000 ASHA workers in Telangana have asked the state to release their July honorariums, saying that while the payments were disbursed on August 3, many did not see the money in their bank accounts. That is the workers’ account in a report that also records a memorandum submitted on August 4 by the Telangana ASHA Workers Union, affiliated to CITU, to Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy and Health Minister Damodar Rajanarasimha, naming P. Jayalaxmi and R. Neela Devi as signatories. According to the same report, the current honorarium is Rs 9,900 a month, and the union reiterated longstanding demands: a fixed Rs 18,000 salary, PF, ESI and job security.
The Health Department has not published a payment order, treasury release or an explanation for the reported non-credit. The union did not release district-wise figures; the scale and cause of the alleged failure remain unverified beyond worker accounts. What is well documented is the years-long push by ASHA workers for a fixed pay and benefits, including protests in Hyderabad, and public statements by union leaders demanding Rs 18,000 and social security.
For a Congress government that campaigned on fixing basics, timely crediting of frontline health workers’ dues is the basics. If the money was indeed pushed on August 3, the Congress-led administration can show the release and say when every worker will see it. If not, it can say why it hasn’t bothered to pay the people holding up primary healthcare.