Telangana Government to pay telephone bills of 27,000 ASHA workers from this month

Hyderabad: Health Minister T Harish Rao here on Friday as announced that the government will pay the telephone bills of 27,000 ASHA workers from this month.

He attended a programme where 1,560 Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) workers have been inducted in Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy and Medchal districts. The workers’ services will be utilised to strengthen the field-level government healthcare services.

Distributed appointment letters to the workers, the minister said the government had already announced paid maternity leave to all ASHA workers in June. In the last few years, the government has been consistently revising salaries of ASHA workers. They are drawing monthly Rs. 9,750, while their counterparts in States governed by BJP and Congress receive only Rs 4,000-5,000, Rao said.

The salaries paid to these workers are the highest the country, he stated. “The government is incurring an expenditure of Rs 50,000 to train each ASHA worker”.

He took a dig at the BJP-ruled States, particularly Gujarat which was paying a monthly salary of just Rs 4,500 to the healthcare workers. “Before Statehood, when Congress was in power, ASHA workers were arrested for demanding better salary. In contrast, the BRS party has consistently increased their salaries,” he said. The Congress leaders are internationally instigating second Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs) to take up protests and boycott their duties. Many do not realize that all the field level workers including second ANMs are well compensated in Telangana, when compared to other States,” he added.