Bhubaneswar, April 29: Amid the rapid surge in COVID-19 cases, the Odisha Government has decided to provide additional incentives to healthcare professionals – contractual, outsourced and volunteers – engaged in COVID-19 duty and vaccination work across the State in order to keep their morale high.
According to a Health & Family Welfare (H&FW) Department notification issued on Wednesday, additional one month remuneration will be provided to all contractual and outsourced staff working under the H&FW Department for the period from April to July, 2021 as they are putting their lives into great risk in saving the lives of people in the State.
“In view of surge in COVID-19 cases and massive Vaccination Programme, it is highly essential to keep the morale of these contractual /outsourced staffs high so as to enhance their efficiency and effectiveness. The incentive amount will be met out of ECRP fund supported by MoH&FW, Govt. of India under NHM and respective State budget scheme fund as paid in the year 2020,” read the notification.
Apart from this, the notification further read, “An incentive of Rs 1,000 per month will be provided to each ASHA for the period from April to July, 2021 as they are taking active role in surveillance, contract tracing, containment measures and mobilisation of beneficiaries for COVID vaccination, in addition to their routine activities under NHM.”
The issue of provision of Experience Allowances and EPF to all contractual staff under the National Health Mission (NHM) and State Budget schemes will be decided later after detailed presentation by the NHM Mission Director, the notification added.
