Jharkhand: ‘Salaries of over 150 contractual NHM staff withheld’

RANCHI: The salaries of over 150 contractual staff working with the state headquarters of National Health Mission (NHM) have been withheld since June by the newly appointed managing director of NHM (Jharkhand), Bhuvnesh Pratap Singh, ‘because they did not register themselves under the Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) portal’.
The contractual employees have alleged that the decision to put on hold their salaries was taken by Singh to increase the number of registrations on the ABHA portal. They further alleged that they weren’t intimated about the same as he has taken charge only on July 11.
Singh’s order stands in stark contrast to the one issued by his predecessor Aditya Kumar Anand, who had written a letter stating that the NHM’s contractual workers must be credited their monthly salaries by the second working day of each month.
ABHA is an identifier portal of National Health Authority that enables one to share and access his/her health records digitally. It can be created by using either the Aadhaar card or driving licence.
“Many among us haven’t got our mobile phones registered on the Aadhar portal and that is the reason why we are unable to register ourselves on ABHA. Is it right to put our salaries on hold due to this reason? We do not have any other source of income. How are we supposed to take care of our families,” an NHM staff said.
The calculation as well as payment of salaries of contractual NHM staff is done by the finance and human resource department, which is approved by the MD.
Laxmi Narayan Kishore, who looks after the human resource unit of state NHM, said, “The salaries have got delayed as we are shifting to our e-office system. The work started from July 12 only,” adding, “I am not aware of Anand’s letter.”
Finance director of NHM (Jharkhand) Diwakar Chandra Jha refused to comment.
“Singh has made a note on their salary files, stating that all the employees should get themselves registered on the ABHA portal. That is the reason why we haven’t been paid our salaries. I have requested the finance cell to release our salaries this month. I have even assured them that the remaining staff will get themselves registered on the portal before next month. However, our requests have fallen on deaf ears,” a senior NHM official said.
TOI’s attempts to contact Singh went futile.