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108 ambulance employees call off strike after meeting health minister
The 108 ambulance employees association in Punjab ended their state-wide strike on Wednesday after a meeting with health minister Dr Balbir Singh.
The 108 ambulance employees association in Punjab ended their state-wide strike on Wednesday after a meeting with health minister Dr Balbir Singh. The employees were agitating at Ladhowal toll plaza for the past eight days demanding fair wages. The ambulance service will resume on Thursday.
“We have acknowledged the valid complaints of low pay of employees and have pledged to address them through a cabinet sub-committee, consisting of four members, that will consider both the employees’ and the company’s perspectives,” the health minister said after the meeting, adding, “The employees association has agreed to call off the strike and resume the service.”
The president of 108 ambulance employee’s union Manpreet Singh Nijjer confirmed the development and said, “The strike has been called off following a meeting with the health minister and IGP Jaskaran Singh, who addressed our grievances and assured us that they will present the matter to the cabinet sub-committee during the next meeting.”
The protesting employees were demanding that the Aam Aadmi Party government take back the control of the service from the private company, Ziqitza Healthcare Limited (ZHL), operating the 325 ambulances.
Earlier, the employees had met health minister Dr Balbir Singh on January 13. After that, the Punjab government formed a four-member sub-committee of cabinet ministers to address the concerns of ambulance employees. The sub-committee included health minister Dr Balbir Singh, finance minister Harpal Cheema, minister of rural development and panchayats Kuldeep Dhaliwal, and Aman Arora, minister of housing and urban development.
The 108 Ambulances were started in the year 2011 to provide free transportation to patients. Punjab Health Systems Corporation (PHSC) operates Emergency Response Services 108 Ambulance in the state through a private company, ZHL, as per the new contract signed for five years on January 15, 2021.
Despite repeated attempts, the project head of 108 ambulance services in Punjab Manish Batra wasn’t available for comments post the meeting.
The firm had issued notice to protestors to get back to work and had also planned to hire new staff with a request to the government to get possession of ambulances stationed at the toll plaza.
The ambulances are owned by the government, but they are operated by a private company on the contract. Protesters claim that the private company is not providing fair wages and has not given them a pay rise in the last 10 years. The protesters also stated that employees in Haryana were receiving salaries of ₹30-35,000.
Each ambulance is manned by a specially trained emergency medical technician (EMT) and driver. Around 1,400 such employees wanted an annual salary hike of ₹35,000 and regularisation of services under the Punjab government.
