Kashmir Impulse Desk
Srinagar, Sep 09
A 72-hour strike by National Health Mission employees has disrupted Jammu and Kashmir’s public healthcare system, days after MBBS interns ended their own protest following a government assurance.
NHM employees across J&K began the strike on September 9.
The workforce includes at least 11,000 employees in the Kashmir division and provides services ranging from immunisation and maternal and child healthcare to disease-control programmes.
The strike comes as the health department faces a significant staffing shortage.
Government figures cited in the report show nearly 16,000 posts vacant across the Health and Medical Education Department, including doctors, paramedical staff and other non-gazetted positions.
With regular recruitment unable to fill the gap, hospitals and health programmes have increasingly relied on NHM employees and other contractual and academic arrangements.
The J&K NHM Employees Association has demanded a time-bound process for regularisation and greater job security for eligible employees, as well as equal pay for equal work and extension of 7th Pay Commission benefits.
The association has also sought financial assistance of Rs 30 lakh for families of NHM employees who die while in service.
Association spokesperson Abdul Rauoof said some NHM employees had worked for nearly 18 years without a comprehensive regularisation or job-security framework.
The association said the government had failed to respond to a final ultimatum issued before the strike.
NHM employees had also struck work in April but withdrew the protest after receiving assurances that their demands would be addressed within two months.
Separately, MBBS and BDS interns at government medical colleges in J&K ended an indefinite strike this week after the Health and Medical Education Department promised to resolve their stipend-related demands within 30 days.
The interns had sought an increase in their monthly stipend from Rs 12,300 to Rs 30,000.
They said the stipend had not been revised for nearly seven years.
