Kupwara, Dec 17: Scores of ASHA workers staged a protest in Langate and blocked the Handwara-Baramulla highway on Friday.
They expressed strong anger against the authorities for not releasing their incentives for the past four months.
The protesting ASHA workers said that though they were being given meager incentives, they were even deprived of their dues.
“We haven’t only been deprived of the monthly incentives since last year. We haven’t even been provided JSY incentives,” ASHA Workers President for Langate Medical Zone Haseena Begum told Greater Kashmir.
The protestors also criticised authorities for the recruitment of new ASHA workers.
They said that the authorities were doing injustice to them by recruiting new ASHAs in those areas where there were already old ones working for several years.
They said that, as per the guidelines, one ASHA worker was recruited for a population of 1000 and presently 154 ASHA workers were working in Langate Medical Zone.
They said that beyond the 1000 population, authorities could recruit new ASHAs to meet the demand of people but, according to them, the authorities were planning to recruit new ASHAs in areas having less than 1000 population.
They said that the authorities should refrain from doing so and in case the process was not stopped, they would once again hit the streets.
Meanwhile, Block Medical Officer (BMO) Langate Dr Gowhar said that the pending incentives would be released within a week.
Regarding the recruitment of new ASHAs, he said that no such step which goes against the set norms would be taken.