The Asha workers staged a protest at the Collectorate on Tuesday demanding Rs 350 per day. For the last seven months, they have been risking their lives as warriors in the Corona epidemic but it is difficult to make a living with the current pay i.e. Rs 33 per day.
From March, more than 200 of Asha workers are conducting door-to-door surveys regardless of their lives in danger in this pandemic. They are getting an allowance of only Rs 33 per day. The help of Asha workers has been sought in other works also and they don’t get paid for the work they have been doing.
Asha workers have contacted the concerned department several times to increase their remuneration but haven’t received any response in return. As a result, Asha workers led by Chandrikabahen Solanki, President of Mahila Shakti Cell, gathered at the Collector’s Office on Tuesday with their remuneration cheques.
They handed over an application to the Collector and also raised slogans to increase their remuneration.
Chandrika Solanki, said Asha workers from Vadodara have been risking their lives to conduct door-to-door surveys for Rs 33 a day since last March. They said, allowance of Rs. 33 daily is not possible to conduct a Corona survey. It is difficult to make a living at such a low wage for such a deadly disease. Also, there is no sure time about when the Coronavirus will end.
The survey work is physically and mentally painful and exhausting. Moreover, the government has advised making the immune system strong but it is practically not possible to do so with just a mere earning of 33 rupees.
On moral grounds, they demanded that the government should give them an allowance of Rs. 350 per day to Asha workers. If their demand is not accepted by the government, they will not delay stopping operations including Corona in the coming days.
