nDefying a Minister's appeal, a union representing the contractual health workers on Saturday staged a state-wide strike in Chhattisgarh demanding their regularization.
The Friday night plea by Health Minister T.S. Singh Deo to prevent the strike proved ineffective.
“The first day of our strike was quite successful. Of the 13,000 contractual health workers in the state, 95 percent staged protests at district level hospitals,” Hemant Sinha, President of Contractual Health Workers Association, told The Pioneer over phone.
"We have stopped working across the state and will not back down until our demands are met," he said.
In districts, the Chief Medical and Health Officers (CMHO) were handed over memorandum by the protesting workers.
Earlier, Singh Deo, citing the emergency health situation in Chhattisgarh, appealed to them not to go on strike.
“Today when we are facing a serious challenge like Covid and Chhattisgarh is in a critical phase, I feel this was not the time to go on strike. We promised regularization of all contractual workers in every department and we are committed to it. But this is not the time to compromise with the health and lives of people,” Singh Deo said in a video message.
The erstwhile BJP regime also faced massive protests by health workers and were promised their posts will be regularized. But this did not happen. The Congress party too before the 2018 elections promised their regularization.