Alappuzha: While the Kerala Government has completed the distribution of the pending salary of state government employees, nearly 13,000 employees under the National Health Mission (NHM) scheme have been left in the lurch as they are yet to get the two months’ salary.

The staff has threatened to take out a “non-cooperation protest” from March 10 and completely boycott work from March 18 in the event of the State and the Central governments failing to take proactive measures to provide the pending salary payments.

“The NHM staff have not got the salary since January. Even the salary hike effected six months ago could not be implemented yet. Now the situation is such that many of the staff are struggling to meet family expenses and transportation costs. Still, they continue to report for duty since the same would affect hundreds of poor patients,” said Sajeev P K, CITU Ernakulam District Secretary.

Protests will be held before the NHM offices and health institutions, a strike notice issued by the NHM Employees Federation warned.  If a solution has not been arrived at before March 15, then the NHM employees will strike work from March 18 onwards, it warned.

A slew of services in the primary health centres, community health centres, taluk, and district hospitals are covered by the NHM.

The NHM programme is implemented with 60% of funds granted by the Central Government and 40% by the State Government. However, the Centre has yet to give its share, and the State, facing an acute financial crunch, cite this as a reason for not being able to make the salary payment.

“Many projects under NHM, even those for infants, are stalled because of lack of funds. It is a major crisis if this is allowed to prolong further,” said CITU State Secretary U P Joseph.