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A group of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA), who are protesting at the Kerala Secretariat, requested actors Mohanlal, Mammootty, and Kamal Haasan not to take part in the state government’s official event to declare Kerala as an ‘extreme poverty free’ state on November 1.
In an open letter, the workers state that the 26,125 ASHAs who survive on Rs 233 a day are among the extremely poor. “Kerala cannot be called free from extreme poverty while we continue to live in misery,” the letter says. By participating in the event, the actors will unintentionally become part of promoting that falsehood, the letter says. “Therefore, with love and respect, we, the impoverished ASHA workers of Kerala, humbly request you to withdraw from the government’s poverty-free declaration ceremony,” the workers request the actors.
“Please come and see us, the ASHA warriors in front of the Secretariat, those who cannot afford three meals a day, who cannot educate their children, who cannot afford treatment for serious illnesses, who are drowning in debt. Without increasing our meagre wages, declaring Kerala as free from extreme poverty is nothing but a great falsehood, a deception by the government,” the letter reads.
The ASHA workers, led by the Kerala ASHA Health Workers Association (KAHWA), have been staging a sit-in protest outside the state secretariat since early this year. Their demands include adequate honorariums and post-retirement benefits.
In the third week of October, they escalated their agitation when President Droupadi Murmu was on a four-day visit to Kerala. They conducted a march towards the residence of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and clashed with police. Many protesters were arrested and later released.