PANJIM: More than 250 staff working in the fight against HIV/AIDS has complained they haven’t received salaries for the last three-four months, even as the National Aids Control Organisation has released part of the funds to the government.
This staff operates through some 13 NGOs and work in 19 targeted interventions focussed on controlling the spread of HIV/AIDS. Also, their salaries for the last 10 years have remained static and are fixed at miserable Rs 5,000, with travel allowance at Rs 500 per month. A marginal increase has been promised, but this has still not happened.
“We haven’t received our salaries for the past three months, while GSACS staff and ICTS councillors have already been paid. This is upsetting. Nobody is sure what has happened. Three months is a long time. This is unfair,” says Sophie Heridia from RISHTA.
However, Dr Rajnanda Dessai, head of GSACS and former director of health defends the government admitting there are vacancies but these have not affected the functioning of the body. But she admits that there has been a delay.
“This April we were informed by NACO funds would not be released directly, but will be given to the government for disbursal,” Dr Dessai said. “The government has directed us to submit a budget head for Rs 1 cr which has been sanctioned. We have submitted the proposal and are waiting for the funds to be released.”
A couple of days ago a meeting was held where the targeted intervention officer informed the NGOs that they would be paid – but only salaries and office rent. Nothing was spoken about awareness and intervention works.
For this financial year NACO has sanctioned Rs 7 crore out of which the first instalment of Rs 2.7 crore has been released to the state government.
“The delay in salaries is due to code of conduct and the new guidelines of NACO. We have already recruited six to seven people while we will be re advertising for few more posts. Work is not suffering due to vacant posts,” Dr Dessai told Herald.
Mahesh Govekar, Programme Manager of Darpan Goa, sounds quite upset about the whole issue. “Since April 2014 till date we have been not paid by GSACS as a result of which we cannot pay school fees of our children, rent of our rented houses. We have become defaulters of banks due to non-payment of our loan instalments. But in spite of these difficulties we are regular at work and trying our best to reduce new HIV/AIDS infections,” he said.
The efficiency of the government’s programmes against AIDS can be gauged as even the websites of the DHS and Goa State Aids Control Society (GSACS) (primary agency that is in the government’s frontal organization in the fight against aids) are not updated in the past few years.
There is neither any information on HIV/AIDS awareness nor yearly plan. The GSACS website shows a 1097 helpline. However, this has not been functional for many years.
