Kerala Health Minister Veena George to meet J P Nadda on ASHA workers issues

Thiruvananthapuram/New Delhi: A day after a section of ASHA workers protesting outside the Secretariat here for 51 days intensified their agitation with several of them cutting their hair, state Health Minister Veena George on Tuesday reached Delhi to discuss their issue, among others, with Union Health Minister J P Nadda.

George, speaking to reporters in Delhi, said that after some discussions between her office and that of Nadda, April 1 was fixed as the date for the meeting and that is why she was in the national capital.

She said that she will meet the Union Minister in the afternoon and will discuss with him the issues of "increasing the incentives of the Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) workers, bringing them within the ambit of the labour laws, and few other related topics".

On Monday, the protestors marked a new phase in their campaign demanding post retirement benefit and increase in their honorarium, by cutting their hair and some even shaving their heads in an emotional gesture of defiance against the state government's alleged "indifference" to their demands.

On Tuesday, a few Congress workers followed the example of the ASHA workers and shaved their heads in a show of support for them.

Meanwhile, state Excise Minister M B Rajesh said that those leading the protest do not want to resolve the issue.

"The government alone wishing for an end to the issue is not enough as those leading the protest do not want to see it end. This is not a protest to resolve the problems of ASHA workers. It is politically motivated.

"Those leading the agitation have a political agenda and are misleading a group of ASHA workers," he told reporters.

He also pointed out that the protestors have no demands against the Centre and were blaming only the state government and asked, "If that is not politically motivated, then what is?"