Dereliction of duty: Yadgir DHO suspended

The district health officer of Yadgir has been suspended by the commissioner, Department of Health and Family Welfare on account of dereliction of duty with a pending disciplinary action.

In an order, commissioner of the department Pankaj Kumar Pandey has said that Dr M S Patil who is the district health officer of Yadgir district was suspended as he failed to ensure that Asha workers were paid their full honorarium.

Earlier this year, Asha workers and contract workers had staged a protest, shutting down services citing overdue. Following this, the chief minister had instructed that the dues be cleared.

The DHO had cleared only 37% of the overdue to be paid in June while none of the Asha workers in the district had received their honorarium in July. Ideally, these are to be paid to the workers before the 20th of every month.