A section of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) assembled at the Secretariat gate – the very same place where they protested day and night for 266 days – on Tuesday to express satisfaction at the positive manner in which the new Kerala government had taken up their demand for decent wages.

Leaders of Kerala ASHA Health Workers’ Association (KAHWA) said that the strike was a success as they had secured a total increase in honorarium by ₹5,000 (including the hike announced by the UDF government on Monday) after they began their strike.

They expressed happiness that the new Chief Minister kept his word and remained accessible. They said that their strike had become a success only because of massive support from the civil society, which was supportive of the strike by women workers at the grassroots, when the LDF government ignored their grievances and adopted a hostile attitude towards them.

“We spent 266 days and nights on these streets and despite our requests, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan refused to meet us even once,” they said.

KAHWA leaders said that though the previous government had de-linked the criteria attached to honorarium, in effect, new criteria were attached to the incentives paid to ASHAs, so that many continued to get reduced pay. ASHAs working in remote areas and hilly areas could not fulfill the criteria linked to incentives and hence were getting paid a smaller amount.

They said that though the National Health Mission (NHM) had readied the paperwork to remove these hurdles, the last government had kept the file in abeyance.

They said that they would continue pursuing their goal of a minimum wages of ₹700 per day – ₹21,000 per month – as well as other demands such as retirement benefits

ASHAs will get together on Thursday (May 20) again in the city to hold a ‘victory march”, they added.