Employees of the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), including staff nurses and other allied healthcare personnel staged a partial sit-in protest at the RIMS Administrative Building on Monday under the banner of the RIMS Non-Gazetted Employees’ Union. The demonstration was organised in response to non-payment of salaries as well as implementation of Old Pension Scheme as the state government had already announced to enforce.
As the agitation was partial, healthcare staff did not attend their duty from 12 noon to 1.30 pm. Speaking to TGC RIMS Non-Gazetted Employees’ Union president, Ivy Rani Khalko said due to treasury scam in police department salaries of employees has not been disbursed for three months. Despite they had appealed on May 8 to release the salary but till now no action has been taken yet to remove the bottleneck in disbursing the salary. Dhirendra Prasad, General Secretary said apart from salary their old demand to enforce the Old Pension Policy (OPS) has also not been addressed as National Pension Policy (NPS) is not suitable for nursing staff.
He expressed surprise being a permanent staff still their employee code is prefix as temporary staff. During the protest, Dr Rajkumar, RIMS director, addressed the agitating employees. Surprisingly he admitted that he had no idea about the non-payment of salary for two months and even he has not been getting his salary. Explaining the reasons behind delay in salary disbursement he attributed two major issues. First, due to changes introduced by the Finance Department following a major financial scam in the police department the salaries of RIMS employees can no longer be processed through the Treasury’s existing computer software system. The second issue involved the earlier practice of disbursing salaries through a temporary ID system, which had been in use since 2013. Under this arrangement, RIMS withdrew the allocated funds from the Treasury and independently managed deductions under the NPS.
With the introduction of a new payment mechanism, technical complications have surfaced, as no dedicated software provisions have yet been developed by the Jharkhand government to meet RIMS’ specific requirements. The director informed employees that discussions had already been held with Finance Department officials and efforts were underway to resolve the issues. However, officials sourced told TGC the management has initiated the process and salary will be disbursed within the next two to four days. Protesting employees warned that if the pending salaries are not credited soon, they will intensify their agitation during the meeting of RIMS Governing body to be held on June 11. More than 300 employees participated in the protest.
