Source: Hueiyen News Service
Imphal, October 05 2010:
Nursing fraternity serving in government healthcare centres has set a deadline for October 20 to pay them the sixth revised pay bands in toto and threatened to launch a ceasework strike from the next day if the demands were not met.
Briefing media persons at the conference hall of JNIMS, Porompat, president of Nurses Association of Manipur (NAM) M Memton said that nurses serving in the government run hospitals and healthcare centres are still receiving the pay structure of the fifth pay commission even though the government has agreed to pay the revised sixth pay bands to its employees.
They are still getting Rs 5000 per month since 1996 except for an addedRs 500 as per a government order issued on January 1, 2006.The pay, they enjoy is even less then that of a Grade-IV employee in the RIMS Hospital.
Under the revised sixth pay bands of the Central government, a staff nurse of Pay Band-2 (PB-2) enjoys a salary of Rs 13,800 a month.
The same is applicable to nurses of Central government and other state governments.
But, nurses of the state government are given a uniform allowance of only Rs 675 per month, much less than compared to that enjoyed by the nurses at RIMS Hospital.
There the uniform allowances are Rs 4000 a month, the president revealed.
The non-revised of pay of the government nurses has is an outrageous disgrace before nurses in the other states who are already getting revised sixth pay bands of the Central government.
Government has looked down upon the nurses of the state government and if the government does not consider their demand for introduction of the revised sixth pay bands on or before October 20, they will be compelled to launch a ceasework strike from the next day, she said.