NE NEWS SERVICE
CHENNAI, APRIL 15
The Tamil Nadu Government Employees Association (TNGEA) on Wednesday urged the state government to extend the special pay equivalent to a month’s salary to all government staff besides doctors and nurses engaged in the fight against COVID-19.
The TNGEA, which had spearheaded several protests in the state over many demands, said Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami himself had recently lauded the role of all government employees, including doctors, nurses and police personnel, in combating the virus.
When this was the case, showing “partisanship” in respect of granting a special pay to doctors and nurses alone would amount to “diminishing their dedicated sense of duty,” TNGEA president and general secretary M Anbarasu and A Selvam respectively said in a statement.
Doctors, nurses, paramedics and sanitation workers involved in treating COVID-19 patients in isolation at government hospitals would get a special payout of a month”s salary to honour them, Palaniswami had announced on March 24.
He had said doctors, nurses, paramedics and sanitation workers are working with a sense of dedication, even risking their lives. “We are duty-bound to appreciate them,” he said adding they would get a special payout of one-month salary.
The special pay should, hence, be extended to all government employees, including lab technicians, involved in the work against the spread of coronavirus, the TNGEA office-bearers said.
Recalling a protest by government doctors last year, the association alleged the participants were subjected to promotion cut and transfers. An announcement by the government that cases, transfers and departmental action against them have been dropped would further motivate them, they said adding the government should take a good decision on their demands.
It may be recalled that the Government doctors affiliated to Federation of Government Doctors Association (FOGDA), an umbrella outfit, had resorted to a strike in October last. The implementation of a Government Order that envisages timebound promotions, apart from ensuring appropriate patient-doctor ratio in hospitals by amending another GO were among their demands. They called off the strike following assurance from the state government that their demands would be looked into then.
