PANJIM: Aam Aadmi Party on Friday asked Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant to ensure that everything is in place before making lofty statements that raise people’s hopes only to have them dashed cruelly to the ground due to non implementation and cited the price hike for COVID warriors as one of such case.
It may be recalled that on April 6, the Chief Minister had very grandly announced a 20 per cent hike in the wages paid to Coronavirus warriors. However, though eight months have passed since the announcement the Corona warriors have not got any increase in wages till date, pointed out Convenor Rahul Mhambre.
He said the details of the beneficiaries are still being sought from the Goa Medical College and Hospital and the Goa Health Services and wondered why it is taking such a long time to collect this information when it should have been easily available with the authorities.
“The inordinate delay is only because the government is in no position to pay the increased salaries to the staff who are risking their lives to ensure that the disease remains controlled,” he said and demanded that they be paid the increased wages immediately.
Mhambre pointed out that the regular as well as people taken on contract basis to deal with Coronavirus in the housekeeping, facility management, ambulance and security staff were to get this benefit and added that it is not very difficult to find out how many of them were involved in the battle against Coronavirus.
“I truly fail to understand why the authorities cannot list out the people who were involved in the battle against coronavirus in these departments and demand that the Chief Minister honours his promise before the affected staff take some drastic step,” he said.
Rahul applauded the staff for their valiant efforts to keep the pandemic in check even though they have been fed with false promises by a Chief Minister who despite belonging to the medical profession prefers not to recognise their work and makes only false promises.
