Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on Thursday chaired a meeting with officials from all government departments to discuss measures to revive the state’s depleting treasury and also measures to help various communities. Among several issues that were discussed, sources who were present at the meeting say that a decision was taken to increase the salary of doctors who are contract employees of the government.
Earlier on March 30, the state government had asked the district administrations to hire doctors, nurses and paramedical staff on a temporary basis to combat the novel coronavirus pandemic. Several of them had complained of the pay scale being too low and had asked the government to revise the payment. However, no decision has been taken regarding hiking the salaries of nurses and paramedical staff, who had lso demaded a hike.
Currently, the medical staff under the National Health Mission are getting Rs 18,000 per month. This includes nurses and paramedical staff. The AYUSH doctors are earning Rs 23,000 and the doctors with an MBBS degree are earning Rs 56,000 per month, officials with the Karnataka Health Department said.
“In today's meeting, we decided to increase salaries for doctors. It will be significant raise. Regarding nurses and paramedical staff, we are yet to deicde. We will decide the hike and then issue a notification accordingly,” the official added.
However, the Health Department officials said that no decision was made regarding increasing the salaries of Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers. “That comes under a separate section itself and nothing has been decided yet,” he added.
In addition, the Chief Minister also directed Transport Department officials to use state transport buses to transport goods to different parts of the state. The Transport Department reported a loss of Rs 800 crore in the wake of the lockdown. The move is to help drive revenue, the official said.
The state government has decided to set up more cold storage facilities in each district to store horticultural produce. Farmers cultivating fruits and vegetables had complained of their produce going bad by the time they reached the markets as transportation was taking longer than usual in the wake of the lockdown. This had led to the farmers suffering huge losses.
“We have decided that the produce will be in the cold storage facilities until they are transported,” Minister in-charge of COVID-19-related communications, Suresh Kumar said.
Minister Suresh Kumar further stated that during the meeting with the Chief Ministers of all states and the Prime Minister on April 27, a detailed plan will be presented to revive the state’s treasury. “The goal is to increase revenue. We will prepare a plan and present it to the centre. After which we will announce it,” he added.