Kohima, June 15 (MExN): The Naga People’s Front (NPF) on Monday expressed concern over the imbroglio in the Department of Health and Family Welfare following the State Government’s decision to regularize the contractual and contingency medical officers under the department and demanded that the decision be put on hold.
“The very decision of commissioning public servants without following the laid down procedures is a blatant and atrocious disregard for the law governing the land and can only be termed as an act of nepotism,” the NPF said in a statement. The logical progression to this scenario would have been the extension of their contracts till such time as the Government needed their services, it added.
Another “unpleasant fall-out of this arbitrary Cabinet Decision would be the burden on the state exchequer,” the party stated, while pointing out that the salary/emoluments of those contractual workers recruited due to the COVID-19 Pandemic could have been borne out of the COVID-19 fund. But instead, their regularization would place an additional burden over a few crores of rupees every year on the state budget, while the Government is struggling even to meet the salaries of the existing State Government employees.
“And moreover, the Chief Minister himself has announced on various occasions that the State Government is struggling to meet up the salaries of the existing employees,” it added.
The NPF Party demanded that the Cabinet decision be put on hold and said “that the rules of recruitment into the public service as a regular employee cannot be so patently ignored just taking advantage of the existing pandemic.” This authoritarian attitude of the PDA Government would moreover, set a very dangerous precedent for the post-pandemic governments and the future Naga generations, it asserted.
Instead, the NPF party called for the recruitment of trained medical personnel as regularized appointees, where necessitated, through Nagaland Public Service Commission (NPSC), and only after undergoing the prescribed probationary period. This, it said, would ensure that all qualified candidates have an equal opportunity for employment under the state government and no one is discriminated against.
The NPF also urged the PDA government to expeditiously address the grievances of the NHM Employees and break the deadlock so that various Health Centres across the state start functioning normally again.
“The lives of the people of Nagaland must not be imperiled because of ‘blatant and atrocious nepotism’ of the Government,” it said while asking the government of the day to immediately work out the modalities so that medical professionals can serve the public at this time of crisis.
